Dynamic economic evaluation of distribution automation systems

In a deregulated environment of power distribution industry, a comprehensive economic evaluation for the implementation of distribution automation (DA) systems is inevitable. Using the presented methodology in this paper and system dynamics approach, it is efficiently possible to deal with variation of the economic parameters such as the interest rate, inflation rate, energy supply cost, load growth, etc. In this paper, economic short-run and long-run impacts of DA systems are evaluated from utility point of view. Also economic benefits from customers´ point of view are analyzed. A practical pricing strategy for maximizing the utility profit is suggested depending on the underlying market structure of electricity. Based on the presented dynamic modeling, the reduced energy revenue, capital cost, labor cost, energy loss and supply costs, and revenue due to electric service quality have been illustrated during a particular planning horizon which is taken 84 months in the case study. The distribution network topology, reconfiguration capabilities, customer types, and customer outage characteristics are taken into account.