The effect of reducing momentary outages on distribution reliability indices

Momentary outages are one of the major causes of power supply quality complaints. One method of reducing momentary outages is to eliminate the instantaneous trip on the feeder circuit breaker, thereby making all lateral faults permanent. While this practice does indeed reduce the number of momentary outages, it can adversely affect reliability indices that may be reported to regulatory commissions. The effect of converting momentary outages to permanent outages on distribution feeders is studied. The relationship of momentary outages to good power supply quality is also studied. The effect on reliability of adding reclosers to distribution feeders is discussed