Linearized segmentation method for probabilistic production cost simulation

The segmentation method is one of the basic algorithms for probabilistic production cost simulation. If the capacity block sizes are divisible by the segment size, it gives the exact expected energy and reliability values. In case a block size is not divisible by the segment size, the block size and the forced outage rate are suitably modified in the practice. However, this produces a loss in accuracy. In this paper, another approach for handling blocks with not divisible capacity sizes is presented. The basic idea is to divide each segment into two parts, temporarily, to perform the actual convolution or deconvolution computations. The zeroth and first moments of the parts are estimated based on a linear approximation. By our computational experience, at the expense of a slight increase of computational time, the accuracy can be significantly improved by the new method.