Optimal Reliability Allocation of ±800 kV Ultra HVDC Transmission Systems

In this paper, an optimal reliability allocation (ORA) model of ±800 kV ultra-high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system is proposed. The model intends to provide the means to determine the availability requirements of components in the bidding process of ±800 kV ultra HVDC transmission projects. In this model, the component availability is optimized based on the prespecified system reliability. The objective function is composed of the component investment cost and the operation and maintenance cost. The ORA is formulated as a constrained nonlinear programming problem, and the genetic algorithm (GA) is used to find its solution. An improved dagger sampling (IDS) method is proposed to evaluate the reliability of ultra HVDC systems, and a bisection method is used to generate the initial population of the GA. An actual ultra HVDC project is used to conduct the case study. Results show that the proposed ORA model can minimize the component investment, operation, and maintenance costs, while achieving optimal allocation of the system reliability index to obtain the availability of components. In addition, the impact of the component spare on the ORA result is investigated. Performance comparison on the sampling efficiency of the IDS method and the direct Monte Carlo sampling method is also presented.