Outage cost assessment for investment-benefit model of smart grid in Thailand

The goal of electric distribution design and planning is to meet the customer reliability requirement at the lowest investment cost. Smart grid (SG) investment has a potential to meeting these goals. However, the risk of investment of smart grid needs to be considered such as the decision of the investment area, suitability of automatic devices for the power interruption cause and installation position of devices etc. Hence, in this paper presents the investment and benefit model of smart grid in Thailand by considering the customer outage cost (COC). First, the survey information of interruption cost for interesting area is summarized and used to assess customer loss in term of the customer outage cost. Second, outage cost models are developed by adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) algorithm. The outputs of outage cost models are unplanned outage and planned outage in term of the sector customer damage function (SCDF). After that, automatic devices are reviewed and considered by the characteristic of power interruption. Finally, the benefits is evaluated by maximum outage cost reduction for each automatic device. The result in this study shows that the smart grid investment can effect to the outage cost in distribution system. It can reduce the time frequency and outage duration. The outage cost reduction is depends on power interruption area and appropriate devices for cause of power interruption. Moreover, automatic device installation is recommended first for high outage cost area. Because, this area is high potential of benefits and high payback period ratio. Therefore, the investment and benefit model for smart grid design and planning in Thailand from the perspective of the outage cost reduction is needed.