Assessment of the Reliability of a Dynamic Smart Grid System

One of the expectations from a smart grid is that it will be more efficient and reliable than a traditional power grid. The electric power distribution system is expected to change drastically. With the involvement of modern high-speed communication and computational applications, the speed with which one can monitor actions on a grid has increased. The incorporation of distributed renewable energy resources and storage systems have brought a new dynamic into this system. Smart grid technologies are expected to change the design and operating requirements of the electric power system, allowing current electricity grids to better incorporate renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, backup distribution generators and advanced energy storage systems. To measure the reliability of such a system would require new tools and applications. This paper presents a new method of finding reliability and availability of the electric power distribution network; that is the ability to model the dynamics of the smart grid including a variation of weather conditions at different locations for the large-scale system. Dynamic reconfigurations of a smart grid and variable weather conditions create challenges in reliability modelling and analysis. To overcome these obstacles, a new approach has been developed – the variable weather Boolean logic driven Markov