Reliability Evaluation of a Regional Integrated Energy System Based on Complex Network Theory

Most of the methods currently used to evaluate the reliability of integrated energy supply mainly consider such systems on a microgrid scale and focus on the effects of interactions among various energy carriers on the overall energy supply reliability of the system. As a result, it is difficult to analyze the system reliability in terms of its topology. Therefore, this paper proposes an approach for evaluating the reliability of a regional integrated energy system based on complex network theory. First, the feasibility of complex network theory application was analyzed based on the structural framework of the regional integrated energy system. Then, a weighted complex network model containing network characteristics was constructed by improving the “distance” parameter in the complex network theory. Employing this model enabled the proposal of reliability evaluation indices, including nodes and the entire system, from the perspective of the system network topology. Finally, the effectiveness and applicability of the developed method were verified by constructing a test system. The application of complex network theory for reliability evaluations of regional integrated energy systems described in this paper provides guidance for planning and constructing future systems at the level of topology reliability.