Reliability of supply to consumers as a function of the installed generation reserve margin

The paper deals with the relation between a reliability criterion for long-range generation system planning and the actual power not supplied to consumers in terms of unsupplied equivalent minutes. A high-reliability criterion for long-range generation system planning is reflected in a relatively high installed generation reserve margin. As a consequence, the reliability of supply to the consumers is expected to be high. A method to correlate the generation reserve margin with the reliability of supply to consumers has been developed. The proposed method was tested using operation data from the Israel Electric Corporation for a period of eight years (1986–1993). The method could be used to predict the reliability of supply to consumers in the future.