Value-based reliability transmission planning

This paper presents a new value-based reliability planning (VBRP) process proposed for planning Duke Power Company's (DPC) regional transmission system. All transmission served customers are fed from DPC's regional transmission system which consists of a 44 kV predominately radial system and a 100 kV predominately nonradial system. In the past, any single contingency that could occur during system peak conditions and cause a thermal overload required the overloaded facility to be upgraded, regardless of the costs or the likelihood of the overload occurring. The new VBRP process is based on transmission system reliability evaluation and includes the following important elements: (1) a ten-year historical database describing the probabilities of forced outages for lines and transformers; (2) a five-year average load duration curve describing the probability of an overload should a contingency occur; (3) a customer outage cost data base; and (4) probabilistic techniques. The new process attempts to balance the costs of improving service reliability with the benefits or value that these improvements bring to these customers. The objective is to provide customers with their required level of reliability while minimizing the total cost of their electric service.