Shunt capacitor effect on electrical distribution system reliability

To improve the security and reliability of a distribution system, as much power as feasible must go through a given transmission line. This can be achieved by using shunt capacitors as compensators. These shunt capacitive compensators improve the load carrying capability of the line by controlling the reactive power flow. Consequently, the capacitor existence cannot be ignored in evaluating system reliability. The paper applies the state-space method to calculate the reliability indices for compensated and uncompensated systems with different success criteria. The importance of using shunt capacitors to improve the level of distribution system reliability is illustrated in addition to their original function as reactive power controllers. The authors procedure, based on a Markov process, is applied to a numerical example, and indicates that system reliability is improved when using shunt capacitors