Planning of the Electric Power Distribution Systems Securing Maximum Reliability at Constraint Budget

Abstract

It is evident that electric utilities all over world are facing an increasing number of complaints about distribution systems quality. High levels of continuity and quality are the two characteristics that customers expect and demand. Also, distribution systems reliability increase constitutes one of the most important issues in the studies of the power distribution systems. The purpose of this thesis is to find an optimal system configuration in the planning process to enhance distribution systems reliability using a decision making process based on both incremental cost and incremental benefits criteria. This thesis uses A Mathematical Programming Language (AMPL) software to build an algorithm for selection between given alternatives the optimal system configuration to optimize the customer oriented reliability indices, e.g. System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI).Also,the objectivefunction of AMPL software is to minimize SAIDI and point out the corresponding system configurations.The optimization is subjected to not exceeding the allocated budget. The procedure is applied on Feeder 4 of Bus 6 of Roy Billinton Test System(RBTS).Five alternatives are available for upgrading the distribution systems minimizing system reliability indices. MinimalCut Sets(MCSs) technique isapplied for each load point and used in building both of the objective function and the constraints in the AMPL optimization model file. ReliabilityNetworkEquivalent technique is applied to simplify the analytical optimization process. This was necessary to overcome the limited capacity of student version of AMPL software of handling limited number of constraints and hence to make the AMPL software more or almost available for any complex distribution systems. Pre-experimenting of robustness of proposed AMPL algorithm is achieved through comparing reliability indices obtained from NEPLAN software and from proposed AMPL software for base case and each configuration of alternatives for the test system. Net Present Value (NPV) is used to capitalize the cost of energy interruption (ECOST), and added to capital budgeting to determine the totalcost for the optimal investment.