1

Abstract-- The reliability assessment allows the distribution

utilities to make more judicious investment decisions since they
can balance the technical and economic aspects of the supply
quality. However, to accomplish the reliability assessment of any
power distribution network it must model the cause-and-effect
relation between the fault locations and the affected customers.
This work aims to present a method to accomplish the reliability
assessment based on logical relation and matrix operations. The
proposed method is proved by resolving several examples, which
demonstrate how the type and location of the protection
equipment modify the reliability indexes of a specific power
distribution network. Moreover, these examples will show that
the proposed method may become apt at assessing the reliability
of real-sized power distribution networks without demanding
much computing time. Finally, it will also mention additional
applications for which this method may be suitable and suggest
possible improvements to it.

Index Terms-- Distribution reliability assessment.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE Reliability assessment plays an important role in the
performance evaluation of the power distribution networks
since it offers us the theoretical framework to measure the
supply quality served by the utilities. Although the service
quality embraces other aspects such as voltage and commercial
quality, the regulators, distribution utilities, and customers are
paying more and more attention to the supply quality concerns.
That is because the distribution utilities have recognized the
possibility of achieving higher benefits through the investment
reduction, which may primarily degrade the supply quality
level. It is worth pointing out that the supply quality, from the
perspective of this paper, bears relation to the frequency and
duration of the outages occurring in the power distribution
networks, which is a matter of study of the reliability
assessment. The reliability assessment allows making more
judicious investment decisions since it can balance the
technical and economic aspects of the reliability. However, the
cause-and-effect relation between the fault location and the
affected customer must be modeled to accomplish the
reliability assessment of any power distribution network.

This work was supported in part by the German Academic Exchange
Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DAAD).
D. Midence, S. Rivera, and A. Vargas are with Instituto de Energa
Elctrica, Universidad Nacional de San Juan, Ave. Libertador San Martn
1109 Oeste, San Juan Capital, Argentina (e-mail: dmidence@iee.unsj.edu.ar,
sergior@iee.unsj.edu.ar, avargas@iee.unsj.edu.ar).
This paper aims to present a method to carry out the
reliability assessment of power distribution networks based on
logical relations and matrix operations. Thus, a set of
equations, which involves matrix operations, is suggested to
compute the most relevant reliability indexes corresponding to
the considered protection equipment and the power
distribution network under study.
The organization of this paper is as follows. A brief review
of the reliability assessment in power distribution networks is
given in section II. The organization of the data according to
different aspects is presented in Section III. Then, a concise
exposition of the mathematical formulation of the reliability
assessment is presented in section IV. Subsequently, in section
V, the assessed cases and obtained results are reported.
Finally, the conclusions are reported in section VI.
II. RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT IN DISTRIBUTION NETWORK
A Power Distribution Network (PDisN) is made up of many
series components such as electrical lines, distribution
transformers, and protection and switching equipment. These
components can be laid out in such a different manner that it is
possible to determine a wide diversity of PDisN designs.
References [1] and [2] also state that every PDisN
component can be described by a particular set of basic
reliability parameters. The parameters used mostly to describe
a reliability component model are mentioned as follows [1].
Permanent Failure Rate ( ) represents the expected or mean
number of permanent failures that a component can experience
during a specific period while Mean Time to Failure (MTTF)
indicates the expected or mean time that a component failure
takes to occur. Meanwhile, Mean Time to Repair (MTTR or
r) indicates the expected or mean time that a failure takes to be
repaired. Finally, Mean Time to Switch (MTTS) represents
the expected or mean time that it needs to operate a switch
after a failure occurs.
Fig. 1 shows a PDisN from an electrical and reliability
point of view. In this figure, the nodes and branches are
indicated with circled and squared numbers respectively. Fig.
1.(b) also shows the components that are represented by boxes
containing their basic reliability parameters. Applying the
concepts of reliability assessment of series systems, the failure
rate of the PDisN,
PDisN
, can be simply computed by adding
the failure rates of all the components. That is only valid in the
case of considering that the system has no protection
equipment. Therefore, it has:
Reliability Assessment in Power Distribution
Networks by Logical and Matrix Operations
D. Midence, Graduate Member, IEEE, S. Rivera, Graduate Member, IEEE, and A. Vargas, Senior
Member, IEEE
T
2

Fig. 1. Power distribution network and its (a) Electrical representation,
(b) Reliability representation
1
nComp
PDisN i
i

=
=

(1)
Then, it applies (2) to compute the corresponding
unavailability index U to the PDisN.
1 1
nComp nComp
PDisN i i i
i i
U U r
= =
= =

(2)
Finally, in order to compute the mean time to repair index r
of the PDisN, it applies the following equation:
/
PDisN PDisN PDisN
r U = (3)
nComp is the amount of components.
i
, and r
i
are the
failure rate and the mean time to repair corresponding to every
component. To assess the effects of the protection and
switching equipment on the reliability, (1)-(3) must be
modified. Thus, an apt procedure, which is proposed in future
sections, is applied to carry out the reliability assessment in a
real-sized power distribution network.
III. DATA ORGANIZATION
This section presents the way in which the different sorts of
information are organized according to several aspects such as
topology of the power distribution network, characteristics of
the components, load model, location, type, and response of
the protection and switching equipment.
A. Topology of the Power Distribution Network
Since the power distribution network (PDisN) shows a
radial topology from the operation point of view, it is possible
to readily determine how the different nodes are related to
each other. In the context of this paper, the topology of the
PDisN is referred to the connection between adjacent pair of
nodes. Hence, it distinguishes the parent and child nodes. A
parent node is that one that may have either none or several
adjacent nodes connected downstream to it, which are the
child nodes. Furthermore, there is only one node, which has no
parent node. That is the root node (shaded column in Fig. 2).
Meanwhile, there are several nodes that have no child nodes
(shaded rows in Fig. 2). These nodes are the load points.
The information regarding the topology of the PDisN is
organized in a squared matrix named Parent_Child matrix,
which is presented in Fig. 2. This matrix has as many rows and
columns as components in the PDisN.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 1 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Parent Nodes
0 0 0 0 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Child Nodes
0
1
6
2
3
4
5

Fig. 2. Parent_Child matrix corresponding to the PDisN in Fig. 1

The rows represent the parent nodes while the columns
represent the child nodes. Hence, node 0 means the root node
and the remaining node are numbered increasingly. The
interpretation of the Parent_Child matrix is as follows. The
row of any parent node shows a number one if a given column
is its child, otherwise it shows a number zero.
B. Characteristics of the Components
The information related to the basic reliability parameters
(, MTTS, and r) corresponding to each component of the
PDisN is defined by three column vectors with nComp rows.
C. Load Model
The load model, which has been widely used in analytical
reliability assessment, is based on average or expected values.
Thus, two column vectors with nComp rows are defined to
handle the data regarding the number of customers and amount
of power served in each node of the PDisN.
D. Location and Type of the Protection and Switching
Equipments
The location and types of the protection and switching
equipment are handled by several matrixes, which contain
logical information. It has considered four different equipment
such as fuses, manual or automatic switches, and automatic re-
closers. Thus, it has four different matrixes that would handle
the corresponding information. These matrixes are
WhereisFuse, WhereisSwitch, WhereisAutoSwitch and
WhereisRecloser. Every matrix has nComp rows and four
columns.
The rows correspond to every component of the PDisN.
Meanwhile, the first and second columns indicate the initial
and final nodes of the considered branch or component. The
third column indicates with ones if a given type of protection
equipment is located in the branch, otherwise it shows zeros.
The fourth column indicates with ones if any branch is a main
section of the PDisN, otherwise it shows zeros. Furthermore,
the fourth column may allow controlling some common
technical restriction.
For instance, the fuses are only installed in the no-main
sections since they have reduced capacity of current
interruption. For instance, suppose that the PDisN in Fig. 1.(a)
has a fuse in branches 3, 5 and 6; a normally-closed switch in
branch 2, an automatic re-closer in branch 4, and no automatic
normally-closed switch. Hence, the respective matrixes are as
in Fig. 3.
3
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
1 2 0 1 1 2 1 1
1 3 1 0 1 3 0 0
2 5 0 0 2 5 0 0
3 4 1 0 3 4 0 0
5 6 1 0 5 6 0 0
(a) (b)
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
1 2 0 1 1 2 0 1
1 3 0 0 1 3 0 0
2 5 0 0 2 5 1 0
3 4 0 0 3 4 0 0
5 6 0 0 5 6 0 0
(c) (d)
5 5
6 6

3
4 4
Branches
3
Branches
1 1
2 2
WhereisAutoSwitch Matrix WhereisRecloser Matrix
From To
Is there
AutoSwitch?
Is main
section?
From To
Is there
Recloser?
Is main
section?
WhereisFuse Matrix WhereisSwitch Matrix
From To
Is there
Fuse?
Is main
section?
From To
5
6
Is there
Switch?
Is main
section?
1
2
5
6
1
2
3
4
Branches Branches
3
4

Fig. 3. Matrix representation of the location and type of the protection
equipment: (a) Fuses, (b) Manual switch, (c) Automatic switch, (d) Automatic
recloser

The shaded rows in Fig. 3 highlight the location of the
protection and switching equipment while no automatic switch
is represented by a column of zeros in Fig. 3.(c).
E. Response of the Protection and Switching Equipments
It is proposed to model the response of any type of
protection equipment by two matrixes of logical relationships.
These matrixes have been named MaFaiBN and MaResBN.
The former matrix contains the logical relation between a
failure in any component and all the affected nodes of the
power distribution network (PDisN) considering the presence
of the given equipments. On the other hand, the latter matrix
contains the information concerning how the affected nodes
recuperate the supply after that given equipment has operated.
Both MaFaiBN and MaResBN matrixes have the same
structures. They are squared matrixes, in which the rows
correspond to the components while the columns correspond
to the nodes in PDisN. For instance, consider the PDisN in
Fig. 1 and the equipments represented in Fig. 3. Thus, we have
the MaFaiBN and MaResBN matrixes corresponding to each
type of equipment in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 respectively. The
interpretation of these matrixes is as follows. In Fig. 4.(a),
MaFaiBN_Fuse matrix indicates with ones when a failure in
any branch affects a given node in case of considering only the
fuses; otherwise it shows zeros.

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1
3 0 0 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 1 1 1 1
4 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1
5 0 0 0 1 0 0 5 1 1 1 1 1 1
6 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 1 1 1 1 1 1
(b)
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1
3 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1
4 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 1 1
5 1 1 1 1 1 1 5 1 1 1 1 1 1
6 1 1 1 1 1 1 6 0 0 0 0 1 1
(c) (d)
(a)

MaFaiBN_Switch Matrix
MaFaiBN_AutoSwitch Matrix MaFaiBN_Recloser Matrix
Nodes Nodes
Branches
Branches Branches

Nodes

Nodes

MaFaiBN_Fuse Matrix
Branches

Fig. 4. MaFaiBN Matrixes considering only: (a) Fuses, (b) Manual switch,
(c) Automatic switch, (d) Automatic recloser
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 1 1 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 1 1 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 1 0 1 1 0 0
(a) (b)
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 1 1
5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0
(c) (d)
Branches Branches
Nodes Nodes

Branches
MaResBN_AutoSwitch Matrix MaResBN_Recloser Matrix
MaResBN_Switch Matrix
Nodes

Nodes
MaResBN_Fuse Matrix
Branches

Fig. 5. MaResBN Matrixes considering only: (a) Fuses, (b) Manual switch,
(c) Automatic switch, (d) Automatic recloser

For instance, if a failure occurs in branch 1, then all the
nodes of the PDisN are affected for that failure. Meanwhile, if
a failure occurs in branch 3, then the nodes 3 and 4 are only
affected since the fuse in branch 3 blows.
Consequently, the failure is not allowed to disturb all the
nodes. Similar observations can be drawn from Fig. 4.(b)-(d)
in case of considering only the given equipment.
On the other hand, the interpretation of MaResBN matrixes
is as follows. In Fig. 5.(b), MaResBN_Switch matrix indicates
with ones when the failure in a branch is cleared and the power
supply in some nodes is restored by opening the switch;
otherwise it shows zeros.
For example, if a failure has occurred in branch 2, then all
the nodes of the PDisN are affected because of the operation
of the main feeder protection is required. Then, the failure
reparation process begins locating where the failure has
actually occurred. With the supply interrupted and after some
time, the switch placed in branch 2 is opened and the main
feeder protection is closed again making nodes 1, 3, and 4
recuperate the power supply. Moreover, nodes 2, 5, and 6 keep
on without supply until the failure is completely repaired. The
same occurs for failures in branches 4 and 6. Similar
conclusions can be drawn from considering the other types of
equipment. It is worth recalling that the fuses cannot
automatically restore the supply when a failure has occurred
while either the manual or automatic normally-closed switches
cannot automatically interrupt the power supply respectively.
Therefore, the former equipment has a MaResBN matrix that
is full of zeros while the latter equipment has a MaFaiBN
matrix that is full of ones.
Before finishing this section, the authors would like to draw
reader attention to the way in which matrixes MaFaiBN and
MaResBN are obtained. In short, they are obtained based on a
well-known tree navigation algorithm, which is called Depth-
First Downstream Search. References [1] and [3] offer a
detailed explanation of this navigation algorithm which is very
important within the proposed method since it allows
automating the construction of the matrixes MaFaiBN and
MaResBN in base on the types and locations of the
equipments as well as the topology of the PDisN under study.
4

[ ] [ ]

[ ] [ ]
T
Logical Operation "And"
Matrix Matrix Column Vector
Column Vector
_ _
node Comp
MaFaiBN Fuse MaFaiBN Recloser
| |
|
=
|
\

(4)

[ ] [ ] [ ]
( )
[ ]
( )
[ ]
( )
[ ]
( ) ( )
[ ]
[ ] [ ]
( )
[ ]
( ) ( )
[ ]
_ _ *
_ _ _ *

_ _ _ *
j j j
mod
j j j
Comp
j j j
Comp
r MaFaiBN Fuse MaFaiBN Recloser
not MaResBN Switch not MaResBN Recloser not MaResBN AutoSwitch r
MaResBN Switch not MaResBN Recloser not MaResBN AutoSwitch ST
=

+

`

)
(5)
IV. MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION OF THE RELIABILITY
ASSESSMENT
The proposed method of reliability assessment is based on
the Failure Mode Effects Analysis Technique [2], reliability
theory for radial system, and logical relation and matrix
operations.
First, the authors present all the mathematical formulation
using an apt matrix representation of (1)-(3). Thus, the
reliability indexes are obtained by means of simple matrix and
vector operations. This matrix representation provides with a
computational framework, which may allow obtaining very
low computing times. Therefore, it may be possible to deal
with larger power distribution networks. Below, it is presented
the mathematical formulation to compute the basic reliability
index of all nodes of any power distribution network (PDisN).
These basic indexes are: the average failure rate, average
outage time, and the average annual outage time. Although
they are fundamentally important, they do not always portray a
complete outlook of the network behavior and reliability level.
Hence, to assess the severity or significance of an outage it is
necessary to use system indexes.
From the perspective of this paper, the failure rate for the
nodes of a power distribution network is given by (4). []
node
is
the column vector of the resulting failure rates of all the nodes
while and []
Comp
is the column vector of the failure rates of
the components of the PDisN. The expression within the
parenthesis means that the logical operation and is applied
between each element of MaFaiBN_Fuse and
MaFaiBN_Recloser. Then the matrix transposition is used.
Hence, the multiplication between the squared resulting matrix
and the vector []
Comp
gives a new vector []
node
.
Equation (5) aims to compute the average outage time r for
every outage affecting the jth node considering the protection
and switching equipment found in the PDisN. Thus, a column
vector with nComp rows is obtained for each node. Where []
j

is the jth column of the considered matrix, not([]
j
) is the
logical negation of that column. [r]
Comp
and [ST]
Comp
are the
column vectors of average outage time and average switching
time for the components respectively.
The first term in parenthesis in (5) deals with the
information of which failed component can affect the jth node.
The first term in braces in (5) handles the information if in
case of failure; the switch operation is not useful since the
failure is located upstream from its location. The second term
in braces handles the information if in case of failure; the
switch operation is useful since the failure is located
downstream from its location, and, therefore, the duration of
the failures affecting others nodes may be reduced.
The reader should notice that it has been assumed that until
now the operation of the automatic reclosers is always
successful, which means that all faults are clear on the first
reclosing attempt. However, it considers that between 70% and
80% of overhead faults are temporary in nature [4]. Hence, a
portion of these failures are permanent. The overall reliability
assessment is improved by the proposed following equation,
where [r]
j
recloser
contains the information regarding failures that
might not be clear by the recloser operation, and, therefore,
might produce a permanent interruption of the supply.
[ ] [ ] [ ] _ *
j j
recloser Comp
r MaResBN Recloser r = (6)
Results in (5) and (6) are only auxiliary ones. Once they are
obtained, the average annual outage times [U]
j
mod
, [U]
j
recloser

and [U]
node
are compute as follows.
[ ] [ ] [ ] *
j j
mod Comp mod
U r = (7)
[ ] [ ] [ ] *
j j
recloser Comp recloser
U r = (8)
[ ] [ ] ( ) [ ] ( )
T T
Temp
node mod recloser
U sumC U sumC U P = + (9)
Where, [U]
j
mod
gives a column vector of average annual
time that failures in given components contribute to the
average annual outage time of the jth node of the PDisN.
[U]
j
recloser
gives a column vector of average annual time that
failures in given components contribute to the average annual
outage time of the jth node of the PDisN in case that the
recloser operation is not successful. sumC is such an operation
that performs the sum of all the rows in each column of the
matrix [U]
mod
and [U]
recloser
.
Then, the transposition of this resulting row vectors is used
to obtain column vectors. P
Temp
is the percentage of permanent
failures affecting the power distribution networks. The second
term in (9) aims to considerer a more real operation of the
automatic recloser. In the case of (5), (7), and (8) the operation
between vectors indicated by * means that every element of
the left vector is multiplied by the element in the same row of
the right vector. Subsequently, the [r]
node
is obtained by (10),
in which / is such an operation that performs the division of
each element in [U]
node
between the elements in the same row
in []
node
.
[ ] [ ] [ ] /
node node node
r U = (10)
Next, the indexes used in this paper to assess the reliability
from a network perspective are defined in base on load point
indexes in (4) and (9). What is more, the matrix and vector
5
operations are also exploited to compute these indexes as it is
shown in the following set of equations.
The customer-oriented indexes considered are as follows.
System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI)
[ ] [ ]
( )
/
T
node node
SAIFI NCust NCust =

(11)
System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI)
[ ] [ ]
( )
/
T
node node
SAIDI U NCust NCust =

(12)
Where, [NCust]
node
is a column vector with nComp rows
containing the amount of served customer in each node of the
power distribution network. NCust is the total amount of
customers in the power distribution network. Meanwhile the
energy-oriented index considered is as follows.
Expected Energy not Supplied (EENS)
[ ] [ ]
T
node node
EENS U Power = (13)
The cost-oriented indexes considered are as follows:
Outage Cost with durations [r]
mod
and [r]
recloser

[ ] [ ] ( )
f
OutageCost
mod mod
OutageCost r = (14)
[ ] [ ] ( )
f
OutageCost
recloser recloser
OutageCost r = (15)
Customer Outage Cost for each node
[ ]
[ ] [ ] ( ) (
[ ] ) [ ]
[ ]
_ _ *
*
T node node
mod Comp
MaFaiBN Fuse MaFaiBN Recloser
COC Power
OutageCost

=
`

)
(16)
[ ]
[ ] (
[ ] ) [ ]
[ ]
_ *
*
Temp T recloser node
recloser Comp
MaResBN Recloser
COC Power P
OutageCost


=
`

)
(17)
System Customer Outage Cost (SCOC)
1
nComp
j j
node recloser
j
SCOC COC COC
=
= +

(18)
Interrupted-Energy Assessment Rate (IEAR)
/ IEAR SCOC EENS = (19)
Where, f
OutageCost
represents the customer outage cost model
used in the reliability evaluation, [Power]
node
is a column
vector with nComp rows containing the amount of power
served in each node of the power distribution network.
[OutageCost]
mod
and [OutageCost]
recloser
are cost value
matrixes corresponding to the outages with durations [r]
mod

and [r]
recloser
.
V. RESULTS
A. Data
The proposed reliability assessment method is applied to a
practical power distribution network, which is shown in Fig. 6.
This network is the IEEE 123-node test feeder. The detailed
data regarding the section lengths, load, and customer are
presented in [5]. The distribution transformers have not been
showed for simplicity. Meanwhile, the basic reliability
parameters and composite customer damage function are
presented in Table I and Table II respectively. Moreover, the
investment cost of the protection and switching equipments are
given in Table III. It has considered the discount rate equal to
8% and the life period of the equipment equal to 15 years.
1
3
4
5 6
2
7
8
12
11
14
10
20
19
22
21
18
35
37
40
135
33
32
31
27
26
25
28
29
30
250
48
47
49
50
51
44
45
46
42
43
41
36
38
39
66
65
64
63
62
60
160 67
57
58
59
54 53
52
55
56
13
34
15
16
17
96
95
94
93
152
92
90 88
91 89
87
86
80
81
82
83
84
78
85 72
73
74
75
77
79
300
111 110
108
109 107
112 113 114
105
106
101
102
103
104
450
100
97
99
68
69
70
71
197
151
150
61 610

9
24
23
251
195
451
149
350
76
98
76

Fig. 6. IEEE 123-node test feeder

Additionally, it has assumed an annual maintenance cost
equal to 2% of the annualized total investment costs. This data
is considered to be the same for all the cases here assessed.

TABLE I
BASIC RELIABILITY PARAMETERS
Component
r
(hrs)
MTTS
(hrs)
Transformers 0.015/yr 10 1.5
Lines 0.065/yr.km 5 1.5

TABLE II
COMPOSITE CUSTOMER DAMAGE FUNCTION
Interruption Duration (hrs) 0.333 1 4 8
Outage Cost ($/kW) 3.479 5.654 14.769 24.964

TABLE III
UNITARY INVESTMENT COSTS OF THE CONSIDERED PROTECTION EQUIPMENT
Types of Equipment
Unitary Invest
Cost (US $)
Fuse 821
Manual Switch 793
Automatic Recloser 13,885
Automatic Switch 10,050
B. Assessed Cases
Four different cases have been evaluated, which are as
follows. Case 1: It is only considered the main protection of
the feeder at branch 150-149. Case 2: It supposes that in the
six branches indicated with arrows in Fig. 6 normally closed
manual switches are installed. Case 3: It supposes that in the
same locations of Case 2 automatic reclosers are installed.
Case 4: It supposes that in the same locations of Case 2
normally closed automatic switches are installed.
C. Results
The application of the proposed method to assess the
reliability of the IEEE 123-node test feeder gives the results
presented in Table IV where Inv + O&M and SCSQ stand for
Investment-Operation-Maintenance Cost and Social Cost of
the Supply Quality respectively. Moreover, SCSQ is equal to
the sum of Inv + O&M and SCOC. The results in Table IV
support the facts that different equipment influences in
different degree on the system reliability indicators. Thus, it is
6
important that the distribution utilities have such a tool that
allows them to quantitatively measure these influences in order
to make more judicious investment decisions. It can also
observe that the system reliability indicators corresponding to
Cases 2-4 are better than those indicators in Case 1. However,
it depends on the particular interests and regulatory conditions
of the distribution utilities to make the better decision.

TABLE IV
SYSTEM RELIABILITY INDICATORS
CORRESPONDING TO EVERY CONSIDERED CASE
Expected Values Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4
SAIFI (1/yr) 0.806 0.806 0.317 0.806
SAIDI (hrs/yr) 4.253 2.193 1.099 1.704
ENS (MWh/yr) 74.224 38.660 19.333 30.219
IEAR ($/kWh) 3.446 3.915 3.419 3.429
SCOC (k$) 255.763 151.341 66.106 103.619
Inv + O&M (k$) 0.000 0.567 9.928 7.186
SCSQ (k$) 255.763 151.908 76.034 110.804

For instance, if the distribution utility is only interested in
reducing the SAIDI and ENS at the lowest possible cost, then
Case 2 may be consider the best option.
On the other hand, if the distribution utility aims to make
the best decision from a wider scope, then it should compare
the magnitudes of the SCSQ. Therefore, based on that the
distribution utility may balance the reliability and economic
concerns. Hence, the Case 3 seems to be the best choice
among all the available ones in Table IV since the reliability
indicators get improved and the SCSQ is also reduced in great
measure in comparison to Case 1.
Although Case 3 recalls for a higher investment, it provides
the lowest SCOC. Thus, it should be preferred among the
other cases.
Fig. 7 shows the relative improvement of the reliability
indicators in reference to the results in Case 1. It can be
observed that Case 3 achieves the highest reduction in almost
all the reliability indexes. That is, Case 3 attains a reduction in
SAIFI, SAIDI, ENS, SCOC, and SCSQ higher than 60% in
comparison to the results in Case 1.
-80
-70
-60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
R
e
l
a
t
i
v
e

R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n

(
%
)
SAIFI (1/yr) SAIDI (hrs/yr) IEAR ($/kWh)
ENS (MWh/yr) SCOC (k$) SCSQ (k$)

Fig. 7. Relative Difference of the reliability index in reference to the results
of Case 1
However, the reduction attained in IEAR is less than 1%.
Finally, it found that a complete reliability assessment
considering the current problems conditions takes in average
1.15 seconds in a desktop computer Pentium IV 2GHz and
786 MB. This time is appealingly low considering the size of
the power distribution network assessed.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented a method for assessing the
reliability of radial power distribution networks, which
exploits logical and matrix operations. It has also proposed a
way to improve the response modeling of the automatic
recloser considering the possibility of unsuccessful operations.
The method has also been proved in a practical power
distribution network showing its appealing computing
characteristics. The authors consider that the proposed method
is apt to be used in the investment optimization regarding the
reliability and reliability assessment by Monte Carlo
evaluations. The most immediate improvements are the
incorporation into the proposed method of the load transfer
and network reconfiguration.
VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are very grateful to Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans-
Jrgen Haubrich for the support received during our internship
in the Power System and Power Economics Institute of the
RWTH Aachen University.
VIII. REFERENCES
[1] R. E. Brown, Electric power distribution reliability, New York, USA:
Marcel Dekker Inc., 2002, p. 7.
[2] R. Billinton, R. Allan, Reliability evaluation of power systems, Second
Edition, Plenum Press. 1996.
[3] Available: http://www.kiripa.com
[4] Electrical Distribution System Protection (Third Edition), Cooper
Power Systems. 1990.
[5] Power engineering society, power system analysis, computing and
economics committee, distribution system analysis subcommittee,
IEEE 123 node test feeder, presented at the IEEE Winter Power
Meeting, Columbus, OH, 2001.
IX. BIOGRAPHIES
Diego Midence (M04) currently holds a scholarship from the German
Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst-
DAAD) for Ph.D. studies at Instituto de Energa Elctrica, Universidad
Nacional de San Juan (IEE-UNSJ), Argentina. He received the Electrical
Engineer degree in 2000, from Universidad Nacional Autnoma de
Honduras (UNAH).
Sergio Rivera (M04) currently holds a scholarship from the German
Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer AustauschDienst-
DAAD) for Ph.D. studies at IEE-UNSJ, Argentina. He received the
Electrical Engineer degree in 2001 and the Specialist in Electrical
Distribution Systems degree in 2004, from Universidad Nacional de
Colombia (UNC).
Alberto Vargas (M97-SM02) is currently a Postgraduate Professor at
IEE-UNSJ. He obtained the Electromechanical Engineer degree in 1975 from
Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical
Engineering in 2001 from UNSJ. Since 1985, he has been the Chief
Researcher of the Competitive Markets Team at IEE-UNSJ. He is a
Consulting Program Manager of ASINELSA S.A., a specialized software
company for electric distribution development dealing with Electrical
AM/FM GIS and DMS applications.