Optimized operation and maintenance costs to improve system reliability by decreasing the failure rate of distribution lines

Improving distribution system reliability has received a great deal of attention in recent years. Because of the limitation in expected budgets, it is desirable to determine the most efficient strategy to improve system reliability. This paper proposes a novel method to determine the optimized operation and maintenance costs in order to decrease the failure of system components. The proposed objective function includes the average system frequency interruption index (ASIFI) value. To achieve the best strategy to decrease failures of system components, it is necessary to find the minimum value of the objective function, considering the constraints of operation and maintenance costs. A genetic algorithm is used to solve the optimization problem. Moreover, a new mathematical model to calculate system reliability indices, including the ASIFI, is introduced. The proposed method is applied to a realistic distribution system. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in order to increase the system reliability in an optimal manner.