Monetary importance of component reliability in electrical networks for maintenance optimization

This paper proposes a method for defining the importance of individual components in a network with respect to total interruption cost. Since the method considers several customer nodes simultaneously, it is especially suitable for network structures that serve many purposes/customers e.g. transmission and distribution networks with more than one load point. The major result is an importance index, I^H , for every component. This index can be used for the evaluation of maintenance actions. Furthermore, the importance index is used to calculate the component contribution to the total system interruption cost. Finally, the goal to reach an optimal maintenance plan is outlined. The methodology is presented together with an application study for an electrical distribution system in the Stockholm area