A comprehensive approach for reliability worth assessment of the automated fault management schemes

Distribution automation application for fault management in the electricity distribution networks is one of the main potential remedial actions to reduce customers´ outage times and hence improve service reliability. For this purpose, various automation schemes have been developed and introduced in different countries and by different venders. However, the challenge for electric utilities, especially in today´s competitive electricity market, is to identify and evaluate potential reliability reinforcement schemes. Accordingly, appropriate schemes must be determined and prioritized for implementation. In this context, reliability cost/worth assessment plays an important role. A comprehensive approach is proposed in this paper to quantitatively assess the effects of various automated fault management schemes on the distribution system reliability.