Sharif Digital Repository

The major goal of the power industry is to serve the demand of electricity consumers as reliable as possible but at an affordable cost. Towards the goal, however, the industry faces substantial barriers such as aging infrastructures, growing demand, and limited budgets for reinforcements. A great portion of infrastructures which were built decades ago need to be retired. The growing demand needs system reinforcement and expansion. These, in turn, require considerable amounts of investment which is in contradiction with highly limited budget of the power industry. This critical situation forces the industry to utilize the existing system more efficiently and wisely. To this end, the concept... 

The term “Smart Grid” generally refers to a power grid equipped with the advanced technologies dedicated for purposes such as reliability improvement, ease of control and management, integrating of distributed energy resources and electricity market operations. Improving the reliability of electric power delivered to the end users is one of the main targets of employing smart grid technologies. The smart grid investments targeted for reliability improvement can be directed toward the generation, transmission or distribution system level. However, radial operating status, aging infrastructures, poor design and operation practices and high exposure to environmental conditions have caused the... 

The number and severity of natural disasters have significantly increased in the recent years. Extreme weather-driven events cause catastrophic damages to power grid components. As a consequence, severe power outages occur in the affected grids. According to the published reports on natural disasters, 90 percent of such outages originate from distribution systems. In addition, the repair process of the damaged elements takes a long duration. Thus, it is necessary to improve the distribution system (DS) resilience against natural disasters. The strategies for resilience enhancement can be classified into two main groups: hardening and operation-oriented measures.Formation of microgrids has... 

Electricity distribution systems are dynamically expanded in anticipation of new demands. Cost and reliability are the most important factors in finding the optimal plans for network expansion. Recently, implementation of incentive reliability regulations has accentuated the role of reliability considerations in distribution systems studies. This is because such incentive schemes create a direct link between distribution companies' revenues and their service reliability. Thus, these schemes have changed the role of reliability from a technical constraint to an economic factor. In this occasion, distribution companies require new techniques to incorporate the effects of incentive reliability...