Reliability Assessment of Distribution Systems with Distributed Generation Based on Bayesian Networks

Article history: Received: 22.10.2013 Received in revised form: 4.12.2013 Accepted: 6.12.2013 Reliability assessment is of primary importance in designing and planning distribution systems that operate in an economical manner with minimal interruption of customer loads. Distributed generation (DG) units are subject to failures as all other generation units, the random behavior of these units must be taken into account in the analysis. In this paper, a new method based on Bayesian Networks is introduced for reliability analysis of distribution systems with distributed generation. The method permits not only computing the reliability indices of a distribution system but also presenting the effect of each component or some components on the system reliability. Thus the shortcomings of traditional reliability assessment methods are overcome. The impacts of DG units, their location, DG unit capacity in each location and their availability, on distribution system reliability are investigated using a study case of distribution including distributed generation.