Power Reliability Cost vs Worth

Properly fitting a power system to the society it serves is an exceedingly difficult and important problem. Service reliability, a very important factor in this fit, has been determined somewhat arbitrarily in the past. Errors here are costly both to the supplier of electric power and to the power consumer. This paper presents the first method for determining economic optimum service reliability. A method for estimating ating the cost of service interruptions is proposed and the cost obtained is compared with values determined by others. A primary purpose of the paper is to provoke discussion and further research into the cost of power r interruptions and the optimizing of system design considering this cost.