New Metrics for Assessing the Reliability and Economics of Microgrids in Distribution System

This paper proposes a series of new metrics for the reliability and economic assessment of microgrids in distribution system. These metrics include reliability parameters for a microgrid in the islanded mode, indices indicating distributed generation (DG) and load characteristics in the microgrid, microgrid economic indices, and customer based microgrid reliability indices. A two-step Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method is proposed to assess the reliability and economics of a microgrid with intermittent DGs as well as the reliability of distribution system with microgrids. An application in IEEE-RBTS shows the effectiveness of the reliability and economic assessment technique with the proposed metrics, which can provide scientific and comparative information for the design and operation of microgrids.