Impact of circuit breaker failure modes on the reliability of the gold book standard network

The failure modes of circuit breakers have a significant impact on individual load point reliability levels of industrial power systems. This paper presents and discusses the significant variations in the frequency and duration of load point interruptions in the IEEE Gold Book Standard Network Configuration due to changes in circuit breaker failure modes. The reliability analysis was based on the zonebranch reliability methodology [1,7]. Five case studies with different percentages of open and short-circuit failure modes of circuit breakers and fuses will be presented and discussed in detail.