Impacts of automatic loop restoration schemes on service reliability

Automatic loop restoration schemes are employed in electric power distribution systems to perform fault detection, isolation, and service restoration activities sequentially and automatically, so as to significantly reduce customer interruption time. This paper aims to quantitatively assess the impacts of employing an automatic loop restoration scheme, with and without a communication link, on the major attributes of the service reliability. In addition, the effect of the operational failure of communication facilities is taken into account. A typical Finnish urban distribution network is utilized in this paper for the quantitative reliability assessment studies. A powerful software package referred to as "Smart Grid Simulator" is used for directing the reliability studies.