Reliability Assessment of Distribution Network Considering Preventive Maintenance Hong-shan Zhao, Hong-yang Liu, Song Chen, Ying-ying Wang and Hang-yu Zhao ‘North China Electric Power University Baoding Hebei China Abstract—Maintenance strategy impacts the reliability of distribution network directly. Common distribution network maintenance strategies contain corrective maintenance and preventive maintenance. However, the existing reliability assessment methods ignore the effects of preventive maintenance. ‘This study showed the influence of preventive maintenance on the system failure rate by describing the preventive maintenance strategy with a reliability function and proposed a reliability evaluation method considering preventive maintenance of the distribution network. The method adopted the Sequential Monte Carlo method to simulate changes of elements lifetime and the operation condition of distribution network elements and used two kinds of clocks to simulate the state change and the reliability fof elements respectively. The proposed method was used to evaluate the reliability of IEEE RBTS BUS6 system with tenance strategy. Finaly, the effeets of reliability threshold on the frequency and cost of maintenance and distribution network reliability index were analyzed. A reasonable range of reliability threshold is given. Index Terms—distribution network; preventive maintenance; reliability assessment; reliability funetion IL. Iyrropuction The maintenance strategies, having close relationship with the failure rate and service lifetime of equipment, affect the reliability of distribution network directly [1]. Generally, distribution network maintenance strategy contains the corrective maintenance (CM) and the preventive maintenance (PM) [2]. CM is a maintenance task performed to identify, isolate and rectify a fault so that the failed equipment, machine, ‘or system can be restored to an operational condition within the tolerances or limits established for in-service operations. The sudden failure may cause huge economic loss for the power grid and the customers, and serious harm to equipment, personnel and the environment, ie. the security and reliability of distribution network, which just implements the CM, are very poor. On the other side, PM is the care and servicing by personnel for the purpose of maintaining equipment and facilities in satisfactory operating condition by providing for systematic inspection, detection, and correction of incipient failures cither before they occur or before they develop into major defects (3 In distribution network, compared with the CM, the PM strategy can effectively reduce the failure rate of components, extend component lifetime and reduce the maintenance costs, It is an effective measure to improve the reliability of distribution network. With the above advantages, the PM has become one ‘of important maintenance strategies for main components in distribution network. However, the current reliability evaluation methods for distribution network, whether simulation methods [4]-[5] or analytical methods [6}-[7], only consider the impact of CM and ignore the PM effect, e-g., the analysis of outage of power for each component in distribution system. The component outage models, the load point failure ‘models and element failure rates under PM strategy have great differences with those under CM, Therefore, in the actual distribution network reliability assessment, in addition to considering CM mode caused by random failures, the impacts of PM strategies on reliability index calculation should also be considered. In the paper, we built a reliability function to describe the PM strategy and study their effects to the failure rates of distribution network components. On this basis, we proposed a reliability assessment method to the distribution network with PM strategy, which could effectively compensate for the inadequate of current distribution network reliability assessment methods. The method is tested to assess the reliability of IEEE RBTS BUS6 system. Finally we analyzed the influences of PM reliability threshold to the number of ‘maintenance, maintenance costs and reliability index, Tl, PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE STRATEGY OF DISTRIBUTION NETWORK A. Fault Rate and Reliability of Distribution Components Distribution system consists of feeders (overhead lines and cables), switchgears (circuit breakers, disconnect switches, load switches and fuses), distribution transformers and so forth Failure rates of distribution components are mainly affected by component aging, maintenance strategies, and environmental factors [8]. In this paper, the effects of aging on failure rates of components are described by the Weibull distribution with the parameter fi>1 [9]. For component i, its failure rate can be expressed as a function fi(0. Lay 1 non Bedy “ ‘where 0s the characteristic life parameter (days) of component, i, fis the seale parameter. While £1, the failure rate funetion (0) increases withthe increase of the operation time ¢ [10]. In the next section, a detailed analysis ofthe impact of PM strategy to failure rate of. distribution component is proposed. Reliability refers tothe probability ofa product completing the requited function under specified conditions and within the stipulated time. It is a funetion of time, which is named reliability function R(.). The relationship between the reliability function and failure rate of component is shown in (2). R= 2 B. Preventive Maintenance Strategy in Distribution Network ‘The most common way for PM is fo maintenance unexpired components in accordance with predetermined time or specified criteria. The distribution elements with great variety, huge number and significantly individual differences, shouldnot adopt a unified maintenance interval. This paper uses the proposed component reliability function ‘R( to simulate changes of component lifetime and determine the health status of component. We identify whether the clements should achieve PM conditions or not, by setting PM. reliability threshold K, and comparing the reliability function of clements R() with Ry at time . The PM strategy in distribution network is shown in Fig. 1 Fig PM strategy in disuibution network In Fig 1, the abscissa represents the service year fof element i, and the ordinate represents the reliability Ri) of element i at the time £, Reliability of element / is | at time (=0. With the increasing of service year, the reliability decreases. The reliability respects the probability of that clement i don’t fail before time f, in another word, the probability of that the lifetime of element jis longer than f. A large Rit) means the probability of that lifetime of clement / is longer than f. The probability of clement i fails before time ¢ grows with the decrease of R(t). Hence, we can judge the health status of ‘component and make appropriate service decisions by R(t). To ‘make the reliability of elements maintain at a high level, PM ccan be implemented for the elements which do not malfunction but whose reliability has reduced to a certain degree, so that failure of elements can be prevented effectively These are the basic ideas of PM strategy in distribution network. OF course, PM strategy cannot completely avoid clement failures, so PM strategy consists of two maintenance ‘modes: PM and CM. Assuming that PM reliability threshold is, RyORe, g0 to step 9 (Q)Ifr> TTR, element i needs implementation of CM: calculate T7Rand a new TTF; GIF RetwysRy(tm)SRy, clement jn need implementation’ of PM: calculate 77%, ~,77Ry and new TTF", 1TF (4) Renew TPF of related elements and count times of CM and PM respectively. Stop 8: Record the outage information of each load point by searching the maintenance mode and effects analysis table and reset fx of the repaired elements; =k Step 9: If kk, AH, teterH, retam to step 5 Step 10: Compiete the simulation process, calculate the