Regulation of Electrical Distribution Companies via Efficiency Assessments and Reward-Penalty Scheme

Improving performance of electrical distribution companies, as the natural monopoly entities in electric industry, has always been one of the main concerns of the regulators. In this paper, a new incentive regulatory scheme is proposed to improve the performances of electrical distribution companies. The proposed scheme utilizes several efficiency assessments and a 3-dimentional reward-penalty scheme (3DRPS). Through efficiency assessments, economic efficiency and service quality, as two aspects of companies’ performances, are assessed and according to the results of such assessments, reasonable capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX) for each company are calculated. Then, according to the reasonable CAPEX and OPEX, allowed revenues are calculated for next regulatory period. Moreover, the 3DRPS on quality is used to encourage the companies to maintain and improve their service quality during the regulatory period. The 3DRPS gives the incentive to the companies based on changes in their quality indices. The incentives are added to companies’ allowed revenues. Finally, the proposed scheme is applied to Iranian distribution companies and the results are discussed

FAULT INDICATORS EFFECTS ON DISTRIBUTION RELIABILITY INDICES

SUMMAR

A hybrid method for recloser and sectionalizer placement in distribution networks considering protection coordination, fault type and equipment malfunction

Abstract An effective way to improve distribution system reliability is to place switches and protective equipment in the optimal location. Commonly, in the placement problem, the use of equipment in the designated location is assumed to be possible. But in practice, to establish protection coordination between the equipment, it is necessary to remove or relocate some of the equipment. This paper aims to increase distribution companies' profits and reduce customer interruption costs through a feasible solution. A new hybrid method for equipment placement has been proposed that simultaneously solves the protection coordination problem. While determining the optimal number and location of reclosers and sectionalizers, the proposed method ensures protection coordination between equipment (new and existing devices). Furthermore, to achieve a more realistic and accurate model, factors such as equipment malfunction, fault types (transient and permanent), and the relationship between these faults have been carefully considered to formulate the proposed method. In this method, to solve the optimization problems related to equipment placement and protection coordination, genetic algorithm, and linear programming in MATLAB software have been used, respectively. A real‐life distribution network has been utilized to evaluate the proposed method, and the results show the capability and robustness of this method

Dg allocation with application of dynamic programming for loss reduction and reliability improvement

a b s t r a c t Distribution system companies intend to supply electricity to its customers in an economical and reliable manner whereas customers in most distribution system are outspread and connect to distribution system with different type of equipments. These equipment usually have various types and resistance together, that produce highest loss and lowest reliability for distribution systems and customers that are not appreciated in networks. Distributed generations (DGs) are one of the best reliable solutions for these problems if they are allocated appropriately in the distribution system. This paper presents multi-objective function to determine the optimal locations to place DGs in distribution system to minimize power loss of the system and enhance reliability improvement and voltage profile. Time varying load is applied in this optimization to reach pragmatic results meanwhile all of the study and their requirement are based on cost/benefit forms. Finally to solve this multi-objective problem a novel approach based on dynamic programming is used. The proposed methodology is successfully applied to a study case and simulation results are reported to verify the proposed approach

A comprehensive assessment of power system resilience to a hurricane using a two-stage analytical approach incorporating risk-based index

Sustainability of power systems is a vital need for modern societies. The occurrence of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, may lead to blackouts. Hence, power systems resilience is a critical issue for experts. The main focus of this paper is on how to assess power system resilience comprehensively. In this regard, a two-stage framework is proposed. In the first stage, an approach is presented to evaluate power system resilience against a single intensity of a hurricane, which is called snapshot resilience assessment. The Cost of Energy Not Supplied (CENS) is regarded as a primary criterion. A risk measure called Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) is incorporated into this approach to manage the risk of experiencing unfavorable failure scenarios. Accordingly, CVaR of CENS is proposed as an index in this stage. In the second stage, an approach for comprehensive resilience assessment is proposed, which is based on the trend of changing the values of snapshot resilience indices over a range of intensities of the event. The applicability of the proposed framework is tested in the IEEE 24-bus system. Finally, to examine the accuracy of the framework, the resilience of the test system is re-evaluated after applying a resilience improvement method