Value based reliability investment in a modern power system

可靠性评估在规划发电能力和输电网络以获得最优投资决策方面起着重要作用。替代规划备选方案的可靠性和经济性往往相互竞争，达到一定可靠性水平所需的投资成本应从提高可靠性所带来的社会利益中得到证明。电力公用事业公司通常应用既定的可靠性标准来确定适当的扩能项目。被认可为电力设施规划标准的可靠性水平被认为在可靠性和经济性之间提供了可接受的平衡。许多公用事业公司使用每年0.1天的负荷损失预期(LOE)作为其发电规划的可靠性标准。其他公用事业公司，包括SaskPower，以其他形式利用发电规划标准。假设一个标准，例如每年0.1天的Lole，适用于所有本质上不同的电力系统，这可能是不现实的。为了确定最适合某一电力系统的判据，需要对可靠性成本和可靠性价值进行综合评估。研究人员建议与SaskPower合作，通过客户调查确定与发电扩建计划相关的投资成本，以及预计扩建计划的可靠性价值。客户调查既昂贵又耗时，而且不受公众欢迎，但在世界各地也曾零星地进行过。在一段时间内确定的可靠性标准在几年后可能不再有效，因为电力系统的物理、运营和市场结构正在迅速变化，这主要是由解除监管、可再生能源增长、新兴微电网和智能电网倡议推动的。这项研究还将发展一种基于电力系统可靠性和经济学基本原理的方法，以估计适当的可靠性标准，而不必进行频繁的用户调查。这些方法将进一步扩大，以提供工具进行基于价值的可靠性评估，为决定新系统部件和技术的投资提供有价值的投入。

Reliability assessment plays a major role in planning generating capacity and transmission network in order to arrive at optimum investment decisions. The reliability and economics of alternative planning options often compete with each other, and the investment cost required to achieve a certain level of reliability should be justified by the benefits derived by society with the improved reliability. Electric power utilities routinely apply established reliability criteria to determine appropriate capacity expansion projects. A reliability level approved as the planning criterion for an electric utility is perceived to provide an acceptable balance between reliability and economics. Many utilities use a loss of load expectation (LOLE) of 0.1 days per year as their reliability criteria in generation planning. Other utilities, including SaskPower, utilize generation planning criteria in other forms. It may be unrealistic to assume that one criterion, such as the LOLE of 0.1 days per year, fits all power systems that are inherently different. A comprehensive reliability cost and reliability worth evaluation is required to determine the most suitable criterion for a given power system. The researcher proposes to work jointly with SaskPower to determine the investment costs associated with generation expansion plans and the reliability worth of the projected expansion plans using customer surveys. Customer surveys are costly, time consuming and not favorably received by the public, but have been sporadically conducted in different parts of the world. A reliability criterion determined during a period of time may no longer be valid after a few years since power systems are rapidly changing in physical, operational and market structures which are mainly driven by de-regulation, renewable energy growth, emerging micro-grids and smart-grid initiatives. The proposed research will also develop a methodology based on fundamental principles of power system reliability and economics to estimate appropriate reliability criterion without having to carryout frequent customer surveys. These methods will be further extended to provide tools to conduct value based reliability evaluation that will provide valuable input in deciding investment in new system components and technologies.