Comparison of Monte Carlo simulation and state enumeration based adequacy assessment programs: CREAM and COMREL

Adequacy assessment computer programs use either a state enumeration approach or a Monte Carlo based simulation approach to model outages in a bulk power system. Both methods have merits. In this paper, these two fundamentally different approaches are evaluated and compared. The comparison is made by conducting adequacy studies on a real power network of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and on the IEEE Reliability Test System. The two computer programs used in these studies are COMREL, and CREAM. The program COMREL uses the state enumeration approach. The program CREAM is based on the Monte Carlo simulation method