Short-term investment decisions on distribution systems. A probabilistic methodology and comparison with a fuzzy methodology

Prioritizing short-term investments and risk assessment have become a necessity for utilities due to the new regulatory frameworks based on performance and the uncertainties in the planning parameters. In this paper a probabilistic methodology is proposed in order to take into account these uncertainties. First, a software is used to generate aleatory scenarios and subsequently both the system performance evaluation and economic evaluation are calculated. These evaluations are applied to different short-term investment alternatives that compete to improve the distribution network. Then, an investment hierarchy is achieved using a statistical analysis. A numerical example is given to illustrate the applications and results. Additionally, a comparison with a fuzzy methodology previously proposed in other papers by the authors is also presented.