Reliability assessment is of primary importance in designing and planning distributionsystems that operate in an economic manner with minimal interruption ofcustomer loads. With the advances in renewable energy sources, Distributed Generation(DG), is forecasted to increase in distribution networks. The study of reliabilityevaluation of such networks is a relatively new area. This research presents a newmethodology that can be used to analyze the reliability of such distribution systemsand can be applied in preliminary planning studies for such systems. The method usesa sequential Monte Carlo simulation of the distribution system??s stochastic model togenerate the operating behavior and combines that with a path augmenting Max flowalgorithm to evaluate the load status for each state change of operation in the system.Overall system and load point reliability indices such as hourly loss of load, frequencyof loss of load and expected energy unserved can be computed using this technique.On addition of DG in standby mode of operation at specific locations in the network,the reliability indices can be compared for different scenarios and strategies forplacement of DG and their capacities can be determined using this methodology.
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