Distribution system reliability in a deregulated environment: a case study

The deregulation and restructuring of the electric utility industry promise to transform the delivery of power and energy services. A number of new distributed generated technologies are currently available offering a combination of performance and flexibility. Distributed generation is favored particularly because of increased energy efficiency and reduced emission. These distributed generation technologies may offer improved service reliability and better economies from the customer's viewpoint, whereas, from the utilities point of view, the economic benefit needs to be balanced against safety and operational concerns. In this paper, distributed generation system reliability is evaluated to have balancing reliability and cost benefits using industrial reliability software, distributed industrial system reliability evaluation algorithm (DISREL) for validation of the reliability assessment module and tested on a 32-bus distribution system and simulated for various case studies. The distribution system reliability is evaluated based on various reliability indices.