Assessing financial feasibility of PQ improvement devices using Monte Carlo simulations

This paper presents a probabilistic method based on Monte Carlo simulations for assessing the financial feasibility of installing a power quality improvement device at a customer location. The main advantage of this method is that it considers input data as stochastic variables instead of fixed values. Therefore it is possible to calculate all probable outcomes of cost analysis instead of a single possible outcome based on fixed values. An example using the proposed method is presented in the paper. The method can be used by facilities sensitive to voltage sags to judiciously select UPS equipments, DVRs, static transfer switches or other power quality improvement devices.