Monte Carlo simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing for evaluation of reliability of integrated energy systems

We examine models and methods for reliability evaluation of Integrated Energy Systems (IESs), in which energy is supplied in electrical, thermal and chemical form. Such reliability analysis may be carried out by analytical methods or by Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) method. MCS treats the problem by performing a large set of experiments: reliability indices are estimated by simulating the random failure behavior of the system. We applied MCS to a sample case of IES, focusing on the effect of electrical faults when circuit breakers employ different selectivity schemes. We then performed Hardware In the Loop (HIL) simulations to validate selective action of circuit breakers in different scenarios, evaluating the resulting reliability of the integrated energy system.