Evaluation of Reliability Indices Through a Cost Minimization Approach for Planning of a Meshed Distribution System

Maintaining a steady and uninterrupted supply of electricity, ensuring economic productivity, sustaining vital infrastructure, and improving the overall quality of life depend on reliable power distribution. Various issues, such as the depletion of fossil fuel reserves, growing demand, and environmental considerations, contribute to the increased utilization of distributed generation (DGs) at consumer ends. We might enhance the distribution system's reliability by making minor adjustments to the repair schedules and failure rates of specific portions. Accurately determining DGs' position and dimensions significantly impacts distribution networks' reliability and other related factors. Integrating DGs into the distribution system entails additional costs associated with investment, maintenance, operation, and other related expenses. DG installations become a mixed-integer, nonlinear programming problem due to the differing perspectives of utilities and consumers on costs and benefits. This paper presents an analytical methodology for eval-uating and improving distribution networks' reliability, including DG running in standby mode. We improve the distribution system's reliability by considering each line segment's repair time and failure rate, various energy-based reliability indices, and consumer requirements. The objective function considers the added cost of DG's expected energy supply and the expenses as-sociated with adjusting repair intervals and failure rates. Transit search optimization (TSO) effectively addressed the optimization problem, and a meshed distribution system implemented the suggested methodology.