Hydro-Québec´s Economic and Technical Approach to Justify its Distribution Automation Program

This paper describes Hydro-Quebec´s economic and technical approach for the justification of the automation of its distribution network. After defining Hydro-Quebec´s vision of the distribution automation system, this paper will explain all the studies made by Hydro-Quebec to justify its project. These studies compare conventional methods to improve the network performance with distribution automation. Then it covers specifically reliability improvement to define the best deployment scheme of distribution automation. Finally the paper explains the different domains covered by the Distribution Automation business case.