Power System Reliability Concepts

The function of an electric power system is to provide electricity to its customers efficiently and with a reasonable assurance of continuity and quality. The task of achieving economic efficiency is assigned to system operators or competitive markets, depending on the type of industry structure adopted. On the other hand, the quality of the service is evaluated by the extent to which the supply of electricity is available to customers at a usable voltage and frequency. The reliability of power supply is, therefore, related to the probability of providing customers with continuous service and with a voltage and frequency within prescribed ranges around the nominal values. A modern power system is complex, highly integrated and very large. Fortunately, the system can be divided into appropriate subsystems or functional areas that can be analyzed separately. These functional areas are generation, transmission, and distribution. Reliability studies are carried out individually and in combinations of the three areas. This course covers the reliability evaluation of generation, and distribution subsystems.

By the end of this course, you will learn the concepts of power system reliability. In addition, you will be able to calculate various reliability indices for various hierarchical levels of power systems. You will be professional in using statistical probability distributions in solving probability and reliability problems. Concisely, you will learn how to deal with reliability in your work or study. The course consists of 10 chapters that covers all the intended learning outcomes. These chapters are:

1. Introduction to reliability engineering.

2. Basic concepts of reliability evaluation of power systems.

3. Random variables and statistical probability distributions.

4. Applications of the binomial distribution.

5. Capacity Outage Probability Tables (COPT) and risk indices.

6. Applications of the Poisson distribution.

7. Applications of the exponential distribution.

8. Reliability evaluation of simple series and parallel systems.

9. Reliability evaluation of complex systems.

10. Electric distribution system reliability analysis.