Lecture 2

Reliability Evaluation of Power System

A power system is composed of a generation, transmission and distribution system, where the
purpose of a power system is to provide electricity to its consumers in a reliable and economical
way.
 Unique features of electricity
 Different from other forms of energy like oil and gas.
 Power flows from generation to use is not entirely controllable.
 It is also difficult and expensive to store electricity
 Systems are interconnected-requires careful coordination
 Power transfers between utility systems
These lead to these reliability consequences :
 Every action can affect all other activities on the grid. Therefore, the operations of all bulk-
power participants must be coordinated.
 Cascading problems: Failure of a single element can, if not managed properly, cause the
subsequent rapid failure of many additional elements, disrupting the entire transmission
system.
 Because electricity flows at the speed of light, maintaining reliability often requires that
actions be taken instantaneously (within fractions of a second), which requires computing,
communication, and control actions that are automatic.

Initial causes of blackouts

Challenge
Optimum Planning and Reliable Operation of system and for that Reliability study is important.
It evaluates the performance/ability of the system to cover the electric demand, considering
variable load over time and random events that affect the installed capacity.
Lecture Contents
 Introduction to Reliability
 Reliability Evaluation Terminologies
 Generating System Reliability Assessment
 Reliability Cost and worth
 Objective
 Be able to select appropriate index
 Be able to understand generation reliability analysis

Terminologies/Key definitions Related to Reliability

 Power quality problem
 Customer perspective: a power quality problem - condition that causes appliances to
malfunction or prevents their use.
 Utility perspective: a power quality problem- noncompliance with various standards such as RMS
voltage or harmonics.
Power quality problems :

Availability: The percentage of time a source is uninterrupted. The probability of something being
energized. Typically measured in percent or per-unit. The complement of availability is
unavailability.
Unavailability can be computed directly from interruption duration information.
If a customers experiences 9 hours of interrupted power in a year, unavailability is equal to 9 ÷
8760 = 0.1% (there are 8760 hours in a year). Availability is equal to 100% - 0.1% = 99.9%.
Maintainability: This is the probability that a given amount of active maintenance can be carried
out during a given time interval [t1, t2], denoted M(t).
Security: Probability of avoiding an event whose consequences are dangerous. This definition is
to be distinguished from the one commonly used in studies of power systems: the capacity to
survive disturbances related to losses of work without interruption of supply for the consumer.
Failure: Suspension of the aptitude of an entity to achieve a necessary function. After a failure,
the entity is found in a state of breakdown.
Breakdown: State of an entity unfit to achieve a required function. Lack of fitness due to
preventive maintenance or other programmed actions or to a lack of external means is not
included.
Failure rate: Probability that an entity loses its capacity to achieve a function during the interval
[t, t + dt], knowing that it functioned between [0, t]
Repairing rate: Probability that an entity is repaired or replaced during the interval [t, t + dt],
knowing that it was broken down between [0, t]
Contingency: An unexpected event such as a fault or an open circuit. ( an unscheduled event)
outage. An outage occurs when a piece of equipment is de-energized. Outages can be either
scheduled or unscheduled.
Momentary Interruption: when a customer is de-energized for less than a few minutes.
Sustained Interruption: A sustained interruption occurs when a customer is de-energized for
more than a few minutes. Most sustained interruptions result from open circuits and faults.

Customers do not, in the strictest sense, experience power outages.

Customers experience power interruptions.
(NERC) definition: “the degree to which the performance of the elements of the electrical system
results in power being delivered to consumers within accepted standards and in the amount
desired.”

Reliability
(NERC) definition: “the degree to which the performance of the elements of the electrical system
results in power being delivered to consumers within accepted standards and in the amount
desired.”
Two concepts, adequacy and security.
Adequacy :“the ability of the system to supply the aggregate electric power and energy
requirements of the consumers at all times.”
Security : “the ability of the system to withstand sudden disturbances.”
In simple language,
Adequacy : there are sufficient generation and transmission resources available to meet projected
needs plus reserves for contingencies. Adequacy, therefore, relates to static system conditions.
Security : the system will remain intact even after outages or other equipment failures occur.

The object of a reliability study is to derive suitable measures of successful performance on the
basis of:
 component statistics
 system configuration
 Load
Failure Rate

Bath tub curve of components’ life

 How to model Factors?
Assessment Based on Measures
 Measures
 Methods of Assessment

Statistical and Probabilistic Measures

Probability is the mathematical language of randomness which enables you to reason about or
make predictive statements about outcomes of physical systems or processes that have
randomness or uncertainty.
Statistics works the other way: it describes and summarizes characteristics of observed outcomes,
or data, extracts patterns from it, and makes statements about underlying mechanisms or intrinsic
structures of the physical systems or processes.
Why Probabilistic Measures
 Utilities keep record of performance measures like; system unavailability, number of incidents,
number of hours of interruption.
 These measures are used to identify weak areas that need modifications/upgradations.
 These are statistical measures based on available data.
……..Because to deliver power supply continuously on demand is not all time possible in reality due
to random system failures which are generally outside the control of power system engineers,
operators and planners. Also, the duration, impact and frequency of failures vary from one year to
next year. At customer end, their loaf demands are variable. Such aspects can be considered only
through probabilistic criteria.
How to Compute Reliability?
Methods Of Probabilistic
Assessment
 Analytical
 Simulation
Analytical Methods
● Markov Modeling ● Network Reduction ● Fault Tree Analysis ● Cut-set Analysis
Simulation Based Methods
● Sequential ● Non-sequential
Three Areas of Reliability Analysis
 Generating capacity reliability
 Concern with generation adequacy
 Composite system reliability
 Consider both generation and transmission lines
 Distribution system reliability
 Local network connected Io end-users
Generating System Reliability Assessment
Generation
system
reliability

Adequacy Security
Assessment Assessment

Deterministic Probabilistic
Approach Approach

Planning Analytical Simulation

Reserve Methods
Margin Methods

Loss of Energy Energy Not Monte Carlo

Probability Supplied Method

Assessments require
 Model
 Parameters of interest
 The elements for generation reliability assessment not only include generation model but
load model also.
 The components of interest for generation model are the size of the generating units
 and system configuration (unit availability)
 System configuration refers to the specific units scheduled to serve the load.
 The indices used to measure generation reliability are probabilistic.
Elements of generation reliability evaluation.
Steps of Generation Model
 State space representation
 Capacity modelling
State space representation

Fig.1 Generating unit states Fig.2 Two-state model

unavailability of a unit

Needed to find the probability of available amount of generation capacity

Example (Table 1)
Consider a system consisting of three 25 MW units (#1, 2 and 3), each one having forced outage
rates of 0.02. Determine the probability of finding available the exact amount of capacity for the
system.

FOR means unit unavailability.

Capacity outage distribution

 Next step combines the capacity and availability of the individual units to estimate available
generation in the system. The result is a capacity model.
 Refer Table 1
 The capacity outage distribution when combined with an appropriate system load model
derive a measure of generation shortage risk.
Generation Reliability Indices
Power Systems Reliability Indexes
 Deterministic indexes
  Do not take into account the uncertainties that affect reliability
 Simple calculation
 Require less data
 Probabilistic indexes
 Reflect uncertainties in the system
 Require failure statistics of the devices
Deterministic indexes
 Operating reserve margin
 Excess generation capacity in case of emergency
 Percentage reserve
 Amount of reserve capacity as a percentage of the total peak load
 Reserve margin as the largest unit online
 Amount of reserve equals to the capacity of the largest unit online

Probabilistic Reliability Indices

1. loss of load expectation (LOLE)
2. loss of energy expectation (LOEE)/expected energy not supplied (EENS)
3. energy index of reliability (EIR)
LOLE
It is generally defined as the average number of days (or hours) on which the daily peak load is
expected to exceed the available capacity.
It therefore indicates the expected number of days (or hours) for which a load loss or deficiency
may occur.

Example 2
Consider a system consisting five 40 MW units each
with a forced outage rate of 0.01. The capacity outage
probability table is shown as:
Outage time tk (From load model is taken). The study
period is one year.

Capacity Probability of Capacity

Units out Probability
out (MW) IN
0 None 1[0.99^5] 0.950991
40 1, or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 5[(0.01) (0.99^4)] 0.048029
80 1-2 or 1-3…….10 combi 10[(0.01^2)(0.99^3)] 0.000971
120 0.000009

LDC
LOEE/ ϵENS
The index is used in order to calculate energy sale, which is the real revenue for any electric company

Where the ratio of expected energy not supplied to

the system’s total energy demanded (TED) can be found as

Load duration curve with energy not served

Example 3:
Energy Not supplied (p.u) Energy Index of Reliability
ENS=0.7 EIR=1-ENS=0.3
ENS=0.3 EIR=0.7

Power system costs

The overall cost of supplying the electric energy to the consumers is the sum of system cost that will generally
increase as consumers are provided with higher reliability and customer outage cost that will, however,
decrease as system reliability increases or vice versa. This overall system cost (OSC) can be expressed as in the
following equation:

Outagecosts for all customer types depend on the following five factors:
1. Perspective - who/what experiences the loss of power.
2. Timing - when the outage occurs
3. Magnitude - how much load is lost and overall impact.
4. Duration- how long the outage lasts.
5. Advanced Warning - whether the outage is anticipated or unexpected.
Reliability Cost and Reliability Worth

Example 5: Transmission lines

System Reliability and Cost