Impact of operators’ performance in the reliability of cyber-physical power distribution systems

摘要

Cyber-physical systems result from the integration of information and communication technologies into physical systems. A particular case are cyber-physical power systems, which use communication technologies to perform real-time monitoring and operations, impacting on systems' characteristics, such as their reliability. In addition, it is known that failures of the communication network are just as relevant as the electrical network failures in terms of cyber-physical power distribution systems (CPPDS) reliability. However, some of the operators' performances, such as response time and decision quality, during CPPDS contingencies have not been investigated yet. In this study, the authors introduce a model to the operator response time, present a sequential Monte Carlo simulation methodology that incorporates the response time in CPPDS reliability indices estimation, and evaluate the impact of such response time in CPPDS reliability indices. The method is tested on a CPPDS using different values for operators' average response time. The results show that the operators' response time affects the reliability indices related to failures duration, indicating that a fast decision directly contributes to the system performance. The authors conclude that the improvement of CPPDS reliability is not only dependent on the electric and communication components, but also dependent on operators' performance.