Reliability assessment of distribution systems incorporating feeder restoration actions

This paper proposes a computational methodology for the evaluation of the IEEE reliability indices for distribution systems considering distribution system restoration. The goal of the proposed methodology is to move from a reliability assessment based on historical data to a computational approach. The developed tool allows the evaluation of the Service Restoration benefits, in terms of customers interruption duration in case of fault occurrences. Distribution System Restoration (DSR) is aimed at restoring loads after a fault by altering the topological structure of the distribution network while meeting electrical and operational constraints. The Spanning Tree Search algorithm is used to identify a post-outage topology that will restore the maximal amount of load with a minimal number of switching operations. The goal of the proposed tool is to determine the optimal switching sequences for the restoration process. The reliability indices incorporates contributions of all possible faults effects.