Optimal Maintenance Algorithm for Distribution Network in Presence of Incentive Regulation

Due to the complexity of distribution networks, preventive maintenance is very important. Incentive regulation is also one of the factors influencing the performance of distribution companies, which in turn complicates maintenance planning. This paper addresses the issue of preventive maintenance planning to enhance reliability in the presence of reward and penalty as a motivational factor. Therefore, the profit function of the distribution company, which includes the cost of repairs and reward-penalty, is optimized. In the incentive model for measuring the performance, reliability indices are compared by feeders, and in contrast, the repair program is obtained for each feeder separately. Due to the different causes of feeder failure such as their structural properties and weather conditions, increasing the accuracy of performance comparison from companies to feeders, in addition to penalties and rewards assigning leads to maximise the impact of maintenance at the level of their reliability and is accompanied by cost savings. For this purpose, the information of a real network including 194 feeders is considered as primary data. After categorizing the feeders and calculating penalties and rewards, the profit from the provision of services are optimized by BPSO method. As a result, the preventive maintenance program is obtained separately for feeders for three general categories of frequent failures, which includes substation failure, line failure and tree branch collision in a period of 5 years. The optimization results show that the proposed method, while maximizing the profits of distribution companies, also improves their performance in terms of reliability.