Reliability-driven optimum standby electric storage allocation for power distribution systems

Integration of distributed energy resources (DER) has become an indispensable aspect of the future smart grid. The significant and valuable impact of these resources is expected to lead toward a more reliable and efficient power system. As the number of distributed generation and storage systems increases, the availability of sensitive and critical loads may be improved by allocating a portion of electricity storage capacity as a reserve. The goal of this paper is to determine the optimum standby storage capacity in a smart grid based on reliability indices such as the Expected Interruption Cost (EIC) of the system using particle swarm optimization (PSO). To include the actual restrictions of the power distribution system, we perform load flow analysis and simulate a sequential post-fault scenario for every outage of the components. The results from different case studies show that standby electricity storage can become cost efficient at certain load points of the distribution system.