THE IMPACT OF RISK MODELING ACCURACY ON COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM RELIABILITY

摘要

This paper develops a new risk-based cost-benefit analysis method for distribution system reliability applications. In the conventional cost-benefit analysis, decisions are based on expected values which correspond to assuming that society is risk-neutral. Furthermore, input variables are assumed to be uncorrelated. In contrast to previous work this paper incorporates risk into the analysis by using time-sequential Monte Carlo simulations. By using the proposed method the impact that different risk strategies (risk-neutral/risk-averse) and risk models (non-time-varying/time-varying) have on the result of a cost-benefit analysis is investigated in a case study. Results show that when incorporating time-dependent failure rates, restoration times, customer interruption costs, and loads (correlated input data) a different reinvestment project is selected compared to when these time dependencies are ignored. This result holds regardless if decisions are made based on a risk-averse or a risk-neutral strategy.