Reliability assessment of power systems considering reactive power sources

Reactive power plays a significant rule in power system reliability and security. Reactive power is considered as the network constraint in conventional reliability evaluation techniques. The impact of the failures of reactive power sources such as synchronous condensers and compensators on system reliability has not been considered in the existing reliability techniques. This paper presents a technique to evaluate system and load point reliability indices of power systems considering reactive power shortages due to the failures caused by reactive power sources. The reliability indices due to the reactive power shortages are separated from those due to the real power shortages. Two reliability indices related to reactive power shortage are proposed. The IEEE 30-bus system is modified and analyzed to illustrate the proposed technique. The results provide very important information for system planners and operators for reactive power management.