Comparison of System-Level Availability in Industrial Grids

This paper evaluates the availability of traditional AC based and state-of-the-art LVDC based industrial grids. The main focus is on industrial grids with a high penetration of power electronics, used to power production lines with many drives. Firstly, the Monte Carlo approach is presented to analyze the availability of several grid topologies relevant to industry. Secondly, this method is used to validate a Multi-State Markov approach. The Multi-State Markov approach is extended with a battery dependency model, to incorporate battery life in the analysis. Finally, after validation, the Multi-State Markov approach is used to determine the influence of the AC grid availability and the battery backup time on the availability of the presented use cases. LVDC systems prove to be more available at the load connection points and, depending on converters chosen, also have the potential to outperform UPS systems at distribution board level.