Quantitative Decision-Making Model for Distribution System Restoration

Distribution system restoration is a process of finding backup feeders to restore the load in out-of-service zones by switching operations. A feasible restoration plan must satisfy some practical objectives under operational constraints. Since there may be a tradeoff between objectives, and decision preferences vary from one situation to another, how to evaluate and choose a suitable restoration plan under system emergency has become a real challenge in modern power system operation. Conventional approaches can find feasible restoration plans but fail to identify their relative performance as it is unable to make a quantitative comparison among them. In this paper, we propose a quantitative evaluation framework for ranking restoration plans with their performance indexes, using the analytical hierarchy process-based fuzzy-grey approach. Experimental results showed that the proposed method was effective and helpful in assisting operators during the restoration process.