Methods for reducing momentary interruptions in distribution systems

Momentary interruptions in the distribution system occur due to recloser operations and automated switching. With increasing use of reclosers and switching operations as part of distribution automation, momentary interruptions have become prominent causing concerns about reliability. This can affect the sensitive loads in the system. An innovative technique to reduce momentary interruptions and thus mitigate MAIFI in a distribution system is proposed in this paper. The proposed methods describe strategies with and without communication, for protection devices, to isolate the customers downstream of a fault before first reclosing operation of a recloser and thus reduce momentary blinks seen by customers on faulted feeder. The technique can be equally applied for topologies like radial, looped and meshed systems. The methods are demonstrated and results reported on a distribution backbone taken from Bus 2 of Roy Billinton Test System.