Impact of Distributed Generation Integration on the Reliability of Power Distribution Systems

The future of power systems is motivated by the necessity to diminish the impact of global climate change and reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This can present an extraordinary challenge for the business of electric generation and delivery. The future power system is commonly referred to as a smart grid, which can be defined as an electrical network which uses intelligent monitoring, control, and communication technologies to improve the quality of service and increase the reliability and security of the system. Distributed generation (DG) integration is one of the main concepts in future power distribution systems, where different renewable energy resources combine with conventional generation and energy storage to improve the reliability of the systems and reduce their cost. Hence, assessing the impact of DG on the reliability of power distribution system is an important and challenging topic. The main objective of this chapter is to discuss the basic concepts and techniques used to evaluate the reliability of power distribution systems, including DG. Several techniques will be described in this chapter, and different adequacy and reliability indices, such as Loss of Load Probability (LOLP), System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), and System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), will be calculated.