Distribution network reliability improvements in presence of demand response

Demand response (DR) as a key integral part of the future smart grid is gaining a great and still growing focus of attention in nowadays electric power industries. However, many potential benefits of DR, although they have been envisioned to be significant, have not been yet thoroughly and quantitatively investigated. DR provides network operators with the opportunity to mitigate operational limit violations by load modification in place of load shedding when network reliability is jeopardised. This paper aims to comprehensively assess the potential impacts of DR on major attributes of service reliability in a residential distribution network. For doing so, firstly, load profiles for major residential appliances are extracted from grossly metered consumptions. Secondly, the flexibility associated with individual load profiles is estimated using the statistical data gathered through surveys and questionnaires. Thirdly, for every contingency, appliance level load profiles are modified based on their flexibilities such that the least possible interruption cost is realised. The obtained results are finally combined to calculate service reliability indices. The proposed framework is applied to Finnish distribution system and the obtained results demonstrate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed approach in real-world systems.