Component reliability importance indices for electrical networks

This paper presents three new component reliability importance indices, developed for electrical networks. Component reliability importance indices are useful for prioritization of components as part of a system, especially when considering maintenance activities and/or investment in new equipment. Traditional component reliability importance indices were developed for systems with one input and one output point, which not captures the general function of electrical networks. The proposed indices utilize the concept of reliability worth as a single measure of system reliability in order to establish the importance of the components. This single measure of reliability works over several supply and load points and does for example enable comparisons between components decicated to different load points as well as components from different systems. Furthermore this paper presents data from application studies, which shows on some of the possibilities with the indices. The conclusion of the paper is that the proposed indices provide means of improving analysis of electrical network reliability.