A study on optimal reliability indices in an electrical distribution system

In this paper, the optimal values of reliability indices in an electrical distribution system and their impact to planning are studied. By formulating the interruption cost, initial investment cost and modification cost in terms of component reliability indices, an optimization problem is derived while considering feeder capacity limits, resulting in a large-scale problem. To solve this nonlinear large-scale problem, an effective polynomial-time algorithm is used. The numerical test shows that not only significant savings can be achieved, but information on identifying value-saving feeder/components can be revealed as well. This is a valuable tool to distribution planning/operations