Electricity Transmission Reliability: The Impact of Reliability Criteria

Abstract

In the presence of transmission outages, uncertain demand and variable renewable supply, network operators keep a reliability margin to avoid interruptions and black-outs. The reliability margin is presently determined by the N-1 reliability criterion. Our analytical model defines the optimal reliability margin by balancing congestion costs and interruption costs. This leads to new operational reliability margins and new transmission investment rules that are superior to the N-1 criterion. A numerical illustration shows under what conditions the new rules dominate the N-1 criterion.

Keywords: Electricity Transmission Reliability, Transmission Investment, Reliability Management, N-1 reliability criterion