1110
4, DECEMBER 2017
Impact of the Real-Time Thermal Loading on the
Bulk Electric System Reliability
Jiashen Teh , Member, IEEE, Ching-Ming Lai, Member, IEEE, and Yu-Huei Cheng, Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents a transmission line failure model
that is enhanced with the dynamic thermal rating (DTR) system.
The failure model consists of two parts. The first part is the Arrhe-
nius model and it considers the loading effect of the DTR system
as a result of operating at a higher temperature than the static
thermal rating system. The second part is the Weibull model and
it considers the end-of-life (natural ageing) failure effect of the
transmission line. The proposed model is compared with the nor-
mal distribution model that considers only the end-of-life failure
effect of the transmission line. This paper also investigates the un-
certainty effects of the line failure model parameters, effects of the
DTR system reliability, and the effects of the weather data cor-
relation on the reliability performance of the power system. The
proposed methodology and case studies were performed on the
IEEE-reliability test network.
Index Terms—Ageing, Arrhenius model, end-of-life, failure
model, loading, Monte Carlo, power system reliability, thermal
stress, transmission line, unavailability.
I. INTRODUCTION
ELIABIILTY assessments of the bulk electric systems
R play a major role in the planning, operation, and manage-
ment of the power transmission networks. This kind of assess-
ment is known as the Hierarchical Level (HL)-II reliability anal-
ysis, and it focuses on the continuity of supply for end users by
considering the constraints of the transmission network [1], [2].
The criticality and the foothold of the HL-II studies within the
electrical power system industry are demonstrated through sev-
eral global electricity regulation programs that impose penalties
for bad performing reliability indices [3]. The appropriateness
of the planning decisions is greatly affected by the accuracy
of the failure models use in the HL-II studies. In this sense,
the refinement of the failure models is essential for the HL-II
studies.
Manuscript received April 3, 2017; revised May 4, 2017, May 29, 2017, and
August 7, 2017; accepted August 10, 2017. Date of publication August 29, 2017;
date of current version November 29, 2017.This work was supported in part by
the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) short term grant: PELECT/304/60313051
and the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology grant: MOST-106-2218-E-
027-010. Associate Editor: S.-Y. Hsieh. (Corresponding Author: Jiashen Teh.)
J. Teh is with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti
Sains Malaysia, Penang 14300, Malaysia (e-mail: jiashenteh@usm.my).
C.-M. Lai is with the Department of Vehicle Engineering and the Graduate
Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, National Taipei University
of Technology, Taipei 106, Taiwan (e-mail: pecmlai@gmail.com).
Y.-H. Cheng is with the Department of Information and Communication
Engineering, Chaoyang University of Technology, Taichung 41349, Taiwan
(e-mail: yuhuei.cheng@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TR.2017.2740158
0018-9529 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON RELIABILITY, VOL. 66, NO.
The ever increasing power demands overload existing trans-
mission networks. Accordingly, the two possible solutions are
constructing new lines and maximizing the capacities of exist-
ing transmission networks [4]. The latter, has appealed much
interests due to it being relatively cheaper, easier, and faster to
be implemented [5], [6]. One of the methods for maximizing
the capacity of transmission lines is the dynamic thermal rating
(DTR) system [7], [8]. The DTR system raises the capacity of
the transmission networks based on the real-time weather data,
and this has a number of advantages. First, it increases the load-
ability of transmission systems and improves its resiliency under
the N-1 contingencies. Second, the system operators are able to
serve more load points and secure financial profits even at the
event of contingencies. In contrast, the traditional static thermal
rating (STR) system fixes low ratings for the transmission lines
based on the conservative assumptions of the weather data. If
the weather data is worse than those assumed for determining
the STR, line conductors overheating will occur and this will
lead to damages. For most of the time, the weather profiles are
much more desirable than those assumed for the STR and im-
posing the STR under this condition will lead to a lot of unused
line capacity.
As the STR system suppresses the actual capacities of the
transmission networks, the loading of the networks based on
the DTR system is naturally much higher than those based on
the STR system. A higher loading also leads to a faster trans-
mission line ageing. To date, this ageing effect has yet to be
incorporated into the HL-II studies as most of the analyses
consider only the STR system, which has insignificant loading
effects [9]. Thus, further HL-II studies that focus on the loading
effects of the DTR system are needed. Such studies will pro-
vide a more accurate study of the reliability impact of the DTR
system on the power networks. This is important as the DTR
system is increasingly being accepted as an effective way to
alleviate transmission network congestions [10]. Besides that,
from a more general perspective, ageing due to loading and nat-
ural ageing (end-of-life) are also one of the major assessments
for power system utilities worldwide due to the high cost of
replacing transmission lines (in terms of millions). Thus, the
formulation of an assessment that investigates the power sys-
tem reliability indices based on the age and loading effects, as
a result of the DTR system applications, will contribute to the
better planning decisions of the transmission network.
Modeling the lifetime of the transmission line covers wide
arrays of research disciplines. It involves the studying of the
physical properties of the transmission line, the environment at
TEH et al.: IMPACT OF THE REAL-TIME THERMAL LOADING ON THE BULK ELECTRIC SYSTEM RELIABILITY 1111

which the line is operated at, the electrical and thermal loading
that is applied to the line, the in-service years of the line and
etc. [11]–[13]. All these findings, however, need to be translated
into the probability of failure or the probabilistic function of
time-to-failure, before they can be used to refine the power sys-
tem reliability assessments [2], [14]. In this regard, there have
been many studies that examine the reliability of transmission
networks. In particular, the studies that have incorporated the
DTR system are given in [15]–[20]. Although these studies pro-
vide a framework for evaluating the impact of the DTR system
on the reliability performance of the power system, all of them
use only the historical failure data and statistical techniques
to formulate probabilistic distribution functions (PDF) of the
transmission lines. In other words, the DTR line loading and the
line ageing effects as a result of operating at a higher conductor
temperature were never considered. Such reliability modeling
of the transmission line lifetime may not be sufficient as the
operational factors (i.e., loading) have a significant impact on
the transmission line conditions. Therefore, this presents a gap
that this paper intends to fill.
This paper refines the failure model of transmission lines that
are incorporated with the DTR system. The failure model ex-
presses the lifetime of the transmission lines as a function of
its loading through the Arrhenius model. In order to differenti-
ate the loading effects on different transmission line ages, the
Arrhenius model is also combined with the Weibull PDF. The
proposed refinements are compared with the normal distribu-
tion model that considers only natural ageing failure. Finally, Fig. 1. Enhanced IEEE RTN.
the studies are carried out in the IEEE-reliability test network
(RTN) [21] and the power system reliability performance is isolated areas. On the other hand, Region C (138 kV) is full of
measured using the expected-energy-not-served (EENS) index. load points and it represents compact residential area and city
centers, which can safely be assumed to be much further away
II. POWER SYSTEM RELIABILITY ANALYSIS from Region A.
The power system reliability analysis in this paper is per- Each transmission corridor in the modified RTN is assumed
formed on the IEEE-RTN [21] and it is carried out based on to be enhanced with a DTR system. Each DTR system is further
the nonsequential Monte Carlo (NSMC) simulation process [2]. assumed to constitute a weather profile from a unique location.
The main steps of NSMC are: 1) load level selection, 2) com- The lines that have a common tower or share the same path
ponent state sampling, 3) weather data sampling, 4) network are considered as a single transmission corridor. Based on these
response analysis, and 5) reliability index calculation. The test assumptions, there are a total of 21 transmission corridors in
network and all the NSMC steps are discussed below. the modified IEEE-RTN. Following that, 21 sets of weather
data from 21 unique locations were sampled from the British
A. Reliability Test Network (RTN) Atmospheric Data Center website [22]. The sampled weather
data are the weather parameters needed for the calculation of the
The original IEEE-RTN is a 24-bus network with 33 transmis- line DTR – wind speed, wind angle, and ambient temperature.
sion lines, 32 generating units, 10 generator busses, and 17 load The transmission corridor weather data from within the same
buses. It has a total installed generating capacity of 3405 MW region were sampled from the locations that are about 50 km
and a total system peak load of 2850 MW. The original RTN was apart. One the other hand, the transmission corridor weather
modified by separating the network into three regions according data in between the regions were sampled from the locations
to the voltage level – A, B, and C, as shown in Fig. 1. Region A that are about 100-km away from each other.
is further away from region C than its neighboring region B, and
this applies to the other two regions. Region A and C correspond
to the part of the network with 230 and 138 kV, respectively. B. Load Level Selection
Region B is the part of the network, which interconnects Re- The 20-step load model given in [2] is adopted in this paper
gion A and Region C. The basis of these assignments is that for the NSMC simulation. At least 100 000 simulations are
the network with the same voltage level can generally be con- conducted in order to avoid the premature convergence of the
sidered to belong to a region. Region A (230 kV) is pack with NSMC simulation. In each simulation, a random number in
generators and they are normally located at less populated and between 0 and 1 is generated from the uniform distribution
1112
function and it is compared with the cumulative probability of
each load level. For example, if the generated random number is
less than the cumulative probability of load level 3 but is more
than the cumulative probability of load level 2, load level 3 will
be chosen as the load level for the system during that simulation.
C. Component State Sampling
In NSMC, a uniform random number in between 0 and 1 is
used to sample the component up–down statuses by comparing
the random number with the unavailability of the component.
If the random number is less than the unavailability, the com-
ponent is considered to be in failure mode and vice versa. The
failure of a component, however, could be due to its random fail-
ure or failure due to ageing. Each of these failures has their own
respective probability of occurrence. In other words, a compo-
nent has two unavailability values. As these two events cannot
coexist, that is to say that a component cannot undergo random
failure and at the same time has ageing failure, the component
is only in the down-state if the random number is smaller than
either one of the two unavailabilities. If the random number is
less than both of the unavailability, the component is considered
to be fully operational. Incorporating this feature, however, will
mask the impact of ageing failure. Hence, in this paper, only the
unavailability due to component ageing is considered. In addi-
tion, as this paper is focus on the reliability of the transmission
system only, all the generating units are assumed to be 100%
reliable. The reason is the unavailability of the generating unit is
much higher than the transmission line and will, therefore, mask
the failure effect of the transmission line. Similar assumption
has been used successfully without compromising the accuracy
of the reliability analysis [9]. Furthermore, all transformers and
cables are assumed to be fully reliable in order to evaluate the
contribution of the transmission line only to the reliability in-
dices.
D. Weather Data Sampling
The random sampling of the weather data for each transmis-
sion corridor during each simulation follows the same process
as the component state sampling. A uniform random number
in between 0 and 1 is generated and it is compared with the
cumulative probability of the weather data. If the random num-
ber is smaller than the nearest cumulative probability that refers
to a particular weather data, the corresponding weather data is
selected. This, however, is not sufficient when the weather data
from all the locations are sampled together as the correlations
among the weather data are not considered. Hence, the sam-
pling of the weather data for all the transmission corridors in
the IEEE-RTN also takes into account the correlation factor.
The correlations among the weather data of each transmission
corridor are analyzed. As an illustration, the correlations of the
wind speed data are selected as an example and it is as shown
in Fig. 2. The figure shows that the wind speed data from the
same region have strong correlation. The correlation diminishes
when the wind speed data are compared with the regions that
are further away.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON RELIABILITY, VOL. 66, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2017
Fig. 2. Correlations of the wind speed data among the transmission corridors
in the modified IEEE-RTN.
As the sampling of the weather data for each transmission
corridor is depending on the generated random number, a cor-
related sampling of the weather data can be achieved if the
generated random number is also correlated in the same way
as the weather data [17]. This is achieved by modifying the
multivariate normal distribution function as follows
 
1 1 T −1
f (x) =  exp − (x − μ) Σ (x − μ) (1)
(2π)p |Σ| 2
where f(x) is the vector of correlated uniform random numbers. x
is the vector of uniform random numbers. p is the amount of the
random number needed – number of the transmission corridors.
μ is the mean vector of the uniform random numbers. As the
purpose is to generate correlated uniform random numbers, μ is
also equal to a vector of value 0.5, which is the mean value of
a uniform distribution. Σ is the covariance matrix derived from
the correlation and standard deviation of the weather data and it
is given as
Σx,y = ρx,y σx σy (2)
where ρx,y is the correlation between the weather data in loca-
tion x and y. σ is the standard deviation of the weather data.
The sampled weather data is used to calculate the line DTR
based on the IEEE 738 standard – see Section III-B.
E. Network Response Analysis
Having sampled the load level, component statuses and the
weather data needed for calculating the line DTR at each trans-
mission corridor, all the necessary inputs for determining the
response of the IEEE-RTN are available. In this paper, only the
active power constraints are considered and, therefore, direct
current optimal power flow (DCOPF) is used to examine the
potential violation of the constraints. This is appropriate as the
active power constraint is a more important aspect in the long
term reliability assessment than the reactive power constraints.
Similar approach has also been used with comparable accuracy
to the alternating current optimal power flow in several studies
[17], [23]–[27]. A free educational software, MATPOWER, is
used for executing the DCOPF [28]. During a violation of the
active power constraints, a series of generation redispatch and
TEH et al.: IMPACT OF THE REAL-TIME THERMAL LOADING ON THE BULK ELECTRIC SYSTEM RELIABILITY 1113

load shedding is performed to relief line overload situations. In its unavailability in the next period of time t cannot be evaluated
order to ensure an optimal relief, generation redispatch is given independently of all the events associated to the component
the priority over load shedding as the latter option causes more leading up to T. This unavailability in between the period of T
loss of load. Each run of the DCOPF is as follows: and T+t, is known as the a posteriori failure probability and it
  can be estimated using the discretization method given in [29].

min LCi (3) The estimation is performed by dividing the time period (T, T+t)
i∈Ω L B into K equal subintervals. Then, the unavailability U is given as
subject to 1
K
   U= Pj • U Dj (9)
P Gi + LCi = P Di (4) t j =1
i∈Ω G i∈Ω L B i∈Ω L B
where Pj is the probability of ageing failure and U Dj is the av-
P Gm
i
in
≤ P Gi ≤ P Gm
i
ax
, i ∈ ΩG (5) erage duration of Pj during the subinterval j. Both Pj and U Dj
0 ≤ LCi ≤ P Di , i ∈ ΩL B (6) are estimated by
 T +j Δ t  T +(j −1)Δ t

n f (t)dt − T f (t)dt
GSFl,i × (P Gi − P Di ) ≤ flm ax , l ∈ ΩL (7) Pj = T ∞ (10)
T f (t)dt
i=1
Δt
where PG is the power generated; LC is the load curtailment; U Dj = t − (2j − 1) (11)
PD is the power demand; ΩL B is the set of all load buses; ΩG is 2
the set of all generators. P Gm in and P Gm ax are the minimum where Δt is the subinterval length and f(t) is the chosen PDF for
and maximum capacity of the generator, respectively. GSFl,i is modeling the ageing failure.
the generation shift factor of line l to generator i; flm ax is the
maximum capacity of line l; and ΩL is the set of transmission A. Line Failure Model Due to Natural Ageing
lines.
Modeling the line ageing failure without considering the line
In this optimal power flow (OPF), the load and generation
loading effects is akin to model only the line natural ageing
balance constraint is given by (4). Equations (5) and (6) are
effect. In this case, the normal distribution is chosen as the f(t) in
the conventional generator load curtailment limits, respectively.
(10) due to it being the most commonly used PDF for describing
Equation (7) represents the power flow constraint for the trans-
the mean and standard deviation of data. In this case, the data
mission line. flm ax changes according to the rating given by the
are the life of the transmission line. This, however, leads to the
DTR system.
integration that has no explicit analytical expression in (10).
Instead, (10) can be accurately estimated using a polynomial
F. Reliability Index Calculation
approximation as in (12) [29]:
In general, the reliability index is calculated by taking the
Q (T + (j − 1) Δt − μ) − Q (T + jΔt − μ)
number of a particular event over the total number of samplings Pj =
(12)
that have been performed. In this paper, the EENS is selected as Q T σ−μ
the recorded reliability index as it has the longest convergence
time among the other reliability indices [2]. Hence, monitor- where μ and σ are the mean and the standard deviation of the
ing the convergence of the EENS will ensure that sufficient normal distribution. In this paper, μ = 50 years and σ = 15
samplings have been performed. The NSMC simulation is com- years, are used [30], [31]. The function Q can be calculated by

pleted when the EENS coefficient of variation is less than or w (y) if y ≥ 0
Q (y) =
equal to 5%. The EENS is 1 − w (−y) f y < 0
ENS (MWhr)
EENS = (8)
N  2
where ENS is the energy not served at each simulation. It is cal-
culated as the difference between the total demand and the total
demand that is satisfied. N is the total number of simulations.
Each simulation is considered a year.
III. MODELING TRANSMISSION LINE FAILURE
In order to incorporate the ageing failure effect into the bulk
electric system reliability assessments, the unavailability of a
component due to its ageing failure needs to be estimated. An
appropriate way to do that is to model the ageing failure using
a suitable PDF [1], [14]. According to both of the references,
given a component that has survived up to the period of time T,

w (y) = z (y) b1 s + b2 s2 + b3 s3 + b4 s4 + b5 s5
1 y 1
z (y) = √ exp − ,s =
2π 2 1 + ry
r = 0.2316419, b1 = 0.31938153, b2 = −0.356563782
b3 = 1.781477937, b4 = −1.821255978, b5 = 1.330274429.
The unavailability of the transmission lines due to its natural
ageing for age between 1 to 60 years are calculated for a one year
period and the results are shown in Fig. 3. The figure indicates
that the unavailability of the line increases exponentially as the
line age increases. The unavailability values of the line at age
10 or younger are small due to the insignificant natural ageing
effect during this period. This line failure model is also known
1114
Fig. 3. Unavailability of transmission line due to its natural ageing for age
between 1 to 60 years.
as the “Line failure model (LFM)-1” in the rest this paper for the
purpose of simplifying the reference to this line failure model.
B. Line Failure Model Due to Loading and Natural Ageing
In this section, the line failure events are modeled by con-
sidering both the natural ageing and line loading effects. This
is performed by combining the elements that represent the line
loading and the ageing reliability model. In the case of the over-
head lines and cables, their conductor temperatures that repre-
sent their thermal stresses constitute the line loading element.
The Arrhenius life-stress model is used to model the line loading
effect as it is suitable for relating the thermal stress of the con-
ductors and their remaining life [32]–[34]. The Arrhenius model
states the relationship of any life measure to temperature as
 
B
L (θ) = A exp (13)
θ + 273
where L(θ) is the average quantifiable life measure, θ is the
conductor temperature in degrees Celsius, A and B are the
⎠ ⎥
empirical constants of the formula and they are typically
estimated from the historical loading data.
The effects of loadings on a bare overhead transmission line
are usually represented by the hottest conductor temperature of
a section of the line [15]. The IEEE 738 standard has stated
that this conductor temperature is related to its environmental
conditions as in (14) [35]:
qc (θ, Ta , Vw , ϕ) + qr (θ, Ta ) = qs + I 2 R (θ) (14)
β  
β 
where the symbol qc is the convection heat loss. It is calculated as
(17)
a function of the conductor temperature in degree Celsius (θ),
ambient temperature (Ta ), wind speed (Vw ), and the incident
wind angle to the conductor (ϕ). The symbol qr is the radiated
heat loss and it is calculated as a function of the conductor and
ambient temperature. The symbol qs is the heat gain from the
solar radiations. I 2 R(θ) is the heat gain from the conductivity
of the line, it is also known as the joule heat gain. I is the line
current loading in unit Ampere and R is the conductor resistance
depending on its temperature.
Solving directly for the value of θ using an explicit analytical
method is impossible as (14) is a nonlinear equation. Instead, ap-
proximation approaches such as the Newton–Raphson method
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON RELIABILITY, VOL. 66, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2017
or the Brute-force iterative method from [15] have to be used
to solve for θ. In turn, the value of θ can be applied into (13)
for determining the average quantifiable life (L(θ)) of the trans-
mission line. Then, the value of L(θ) can be combined with an
ageing reliability model to form a complete line failure model
due to line loading and natural ageing.
The normal distribution used in Section III-A is not suitable
as it has two characteristic life measures (mean and standard de-
viation), instead of only one as required by the Arrhenius model.
Moreover, both the mean and standard deviation parameters are
more suitably used to describe the dispersion of data and can-
not be used to model increasing failure rate events. Hence, the
Weibull distribution is chosen as the PDF (f(t)) in (10), as it
has only one characteristic life measure [33] and its parameters
are able to describe the increasing failure rate of transmission
lines due to age and loadings [14]. The Weibull distribution has
also been used before to model the distribution cable’s [36] and
power transformer’s [37], [38] failures. Generally, its function
is given as
   
β
t
f (t) = 1 − exp − (15)
α
where α and β represent the scale and shape parameter of the
function. The scale parameter is also known as the characteristic
life and it is, therefore, equivalent to L(θ) of the Arrhenius
model given by (13). The shape parameter is the slope of the
Weibull distribution. When β > 1, the transmission lines are
considered to have entered its ageing period of the bathtub curve
and experience exponentially increasing failure rate as the lines
age further [14]. When t = α, there is a 63.2% probability that
a member of the population will fail. Substituting the α in (15)
with L(θ) will give
⎡ ⎛ ⎞β ⎤
⎢ t
f (t) = 1 − exp ⎣−⎝ ⎦. (16)
B
A exp θ +273
Equation (16) is a failure distribution function that consid-
ers transmission line loading and ageing effects. From here
onwards, (9)–(11) can be used to determine the line average
unavailability. For the same reason mentioned in Section III-A,
the polynomial approximation of (10) is given as [29]

exp − T +(jα−1)Δ t − exp − T +jα Δ t
Pj =  
β
exp − Tα
where
 
B
α = A exp . (18)
θ + 273
Equation (18) can be used successfully if the values of A
and B are known. However, the historical failure and load-
ing data of the transmission lines are not available in open
literatures. Hence, parameters from the normal distribution in
Section III-A and the simulated average loading data are used
to determine the values of A and B. Although not ideal, this is
TEH et al.: IMPACT OF THE REAL-TIME THERMAL LOADING ON THE BULK ELECTRIC SYSTEM RELIABILITY
Fig. 4. Unavailability of transmission line due to its loading and natural ageing
for age between 1 to 60 years.
necessary and it will only affect the numerical results of the re-
liability model presented in this paper. If the data of line loading
and its corresponding failure record be available in the future,
the presented reliability framework can work equally well with
the newly derived A and B values. The numerical results, how-
ever, will change based on the new values.
That being said, two equations were formed to estimate A
and B. First, the equivalent Weibull parameters, α and β, were
determined from the normal distribution parameters using the
approximation technique given by Wenyuan [39]. These values
were found to be α = 56 and β = 3. The average loading on
the IEEE-RTN is determined under the condition of no forced-
outages (perfectly reliable DTR system and lines) based on the
20-step load model. Under this condition, the average loading of
all the IEEE-RTN lines was determined as θ = 17 °C. Hence, in
the first equation, α = 56 corresponds to θ = 17 °C. Second,
the nominal rating of the aluminum conductor steel-reinforced
(ACSR) transmission line at θ = 93 °C is adopted [40] and it
is assumed to correspond to α = μ = 50. Solving these two
simultaneous equations produced A = 32 and B = 158. The
shape parameter, β = 3, is maintained and it is used in (17).
The unavailability of the transmission lines due to its loading
and natural ageing for age between 1 to 60 years are calculated
for a one year period and the results are shown in Fig. 4. Two
loadings levels were chosen for the illustration - loading tem-
perature of the IEEE-RTN under the no forced outage condition
(17 °C) and the nominal loading temperature of the ACSR line
(93 °C). The figure indicates that the unavailability of the line at
age 10, in contrast to Fig. 3, is significant when considering the
loading and natural ageing effects. In both of the loading tem-
peratures in Fig. 4, the period of age when the line unavailability
is insignificant drops to about 1–5 years, from about 1–10 years
as shown in Fig. 3. This line failure model is also known as the
“Line failure model (LFM)-2” in the rest of this paper for the
purpose of simplifying the reference to this line failure model.
IV. RELIABILITY IMPACT OF LINE LOADING AND AGEING
The developed NSMC simulation (see Section II) for assess-
ing the reliability of the IEEE-RTN by considering the refined
line failure models (see Section III) are summarized in Fig. 5.
The figure shows that the reliability evaluation begins by
the random sampling of the load level from the 20-step load
1115
Fig. 5. Proposed reliability evaluation framework by considering the refined
transmission line failure models.
model. This is followed by the random sampling of the DTR
system statuses and weather data. The DTR system is modeled
using a simple two-state Markov model as given in [17]. The
DTR system statuses dictate the opportunity to uprate the line
rating. If the DTR system is down, the line rating will revert
back to STR. The weather data is sampled by considering the
correlations among the weather from different locations.
The simulation procedure then proceeds according to either
LFM-1 or LFM-2 is employed. When LFM-2 is employed, an
additional process is required to determine the initial line load-
ing when there is no line forced outages. This line loading
is determined by executing the DCOPF. After obtaining the
line loading for each transmission corridor, the corresponding
line unavailability is determined according to (9)–(11). When
LFM-1 is employed, the additional process is not required as
the model does not consider the line loading effect, and the line
unavailability can be determined directly.
Next, the transmission line statuses are sampled according to
their respective line unavailability and the DCOPF is executed
to determine the response from the network. The DCOPF is per-
formed until the NSMC simulation is converged and the EENS
is used as the criteria of convergence. The EENS is recorded
and is used to determine the reliability performance.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Reliability Impacts of the Line Failure Models
In this section, the reliability impact of the DTR system
on the IEEE-RTN was performed based on the proposed
1116
TABLE I
EENS OF LINE FAILURE MODELS WITH AND WITHOUT
THE LINE LOADING EFFECTS
LFM-1 [MWhr/yr] LFM-2 [MWhr/yr]
158.64 182.31
reliability evaluation framework given in Fig. 5. The two line
failure models, LFM-1 and LFM-2, were compared and the
results are shown in Table I. All the results were obtained
based on a 5-year regulatory planning period study. The DTR
system in this case study was considered to be fully reli-
able in order to avoid the failure of the DTR system from
masking the reliability performance of the two line failure
models. The results show that the EENS of the system is
higher when LFM-2 (182.31 MWhr/yr) is used as compared to
LFM-1 (158.64 MWhr/yr). LFM-2 reported an EENS value that
is 23.67 MWhr/yr higher than LFM-1. This proves that LFM-1
underestimated the EENS of the system and it leads to an overly
optimistic reliability evaluation. The reason is LFM-1 only con-
siders the natural ageing of the transmission line and the line
loading effect due to the application of the DTR systems is ig-
nored. LFM-2, however, takes into account of this factor, and
therefore, has a higher but a more realistic EENS value. Hence,
the results in Table I point out that the line loading effect has
a significant impact towards the reliability of the transmission
line and the power network as a whole.
B. Uncertainty Effects of the Line Failure Model Parameters
As the transmission lines have a relatively long life cycle,
there is a problem of insufficient line ageing data for construct-
ing an accurate transmission line ageing failure probability dis-
tribution function. Hence, the adopted (μ and σ) and the derived
(A and B) parameters in both of the line failure models are based
only on estimations. Due to that, there are uncertainties in the pa-
rameters of the two line failure models. In this section, the uncer-
tainty effects of the line failure model parameters on the power
system reliability performance are examined. All the results
were obtained based on a 5-year planning period study as well.
First, the uncertainty of the parameters in LFM-1 and
LFM-2 were examined. The parameters in both of the models
were varied by ±10%. In LFM-1, the mean and the standard de-
viation (μ = 50 years and σ = 15 years) were varied. In LFM-2,
the derived values of A and B were varied. The unavailability
of the lines from age 1 to 60 was calculated according to this
variation using (9)–(11) and the results are plotted in Fig. 6.
Notice in the figure that the unavailability of the line in LFM-2
was calculated by assuming the line maximum loading. From the
figure, it can be seen that the unavailability of the transmission
line increases with age. The values in between the two lines of
the respective line failure model encompass all the possible line
unavailability within the specified range of the variation. From
the figure, it is observed in the two line failure models that, when
their parameters were increase by 10%, the line unavailability
decreases and vice versa.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON RELIABILITY, VOL. 66, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2017
Fig. 6. Uncertainty of the transmission line (1–60 years) unavailability due to
the ±10% variations in the parameters of LFM-1 and LFM-2.
TABLE II
EENS OF THE LINE FAILURE MODEL CONSIDERING
THE UNCERTAINTY EFFECT IN FIG. 6
Line Failure Model EENS (+10%) [MWhr/yr] EENS (–10%) [MWhr/yr]
LFM-1 137.66 197.21
LFM-2 140.87 286.93
Considering this uncertainty effect, the IEEE-RTN reliability
was analyzed according to the proposed reliability framework
in Fig. 5. In this section, the reliability of the DTR system was
also considered to be fully reliable in order to avoid the failure
of the DTR systems from masking the uncertainty effects of the
line failure model parameters. The results of this analysis are
shown in Table II. The bracket values in the table indicate the
percentage of variation of the line failure model parameters.
The results suggest that reducing the values of the line fail-
ure model parameters has a higher reliability impact than when
the values of the parameters were increased. Comparing the
results in Tables I and II points out that the EENS values of
LFM-1 in Table II increases by 38.57 MWhr/yr and decreases
by 20.98 MWhr/yr when its parameters were reduced and in-
creased by 10%, respectively. In LFM-2, these values are 104.62
and 41.44 MWhr/yr. These results show that the factor at which
the line unavailability increases, when the parameters were re-
duced by 10%, is more than the factor at which the line un-
availability decreases, when the parameters were increased by
10%. The variation of EENS values in LFM-2 is also larger than
LFM-1 and this indicates that LFM-2 is more sensitive to the
accuracy of its parameter values than LFM-1. Hence, the results
in Table II show that an accurate data on the transmission line
age distribution are important for quantifying the reliability of
the power system. It is worth mentioning that the changes in the
accuracy of the data only affect the numerical calculations and
not the accuracy of the proposed model as given in Fig. 5.
A comparison between the two line failure models in
Table II also shows that the range of the EENS values is higher
when LFM-2 was employed. This reason is LFM-2 considers
line loading and natural ageing, whereas LFM-1 considers only
natural ageing. The results from Table II confirm the conclusion
given by Table I, that is, the line failure model that considers
TEH et al.: IMPACT OF THE REAL-TIME THERMAL LOADING ON THE BULK ELECTRIC SYSTEM RELIABILITY
TABLE III
EENS OF VARIOUS DTR SYSTEM RELIABILITY
DTR System Reliability (%) EENS [MWhr/yr]
100 182.31
80 259.60
60 406.97
40 569.30
20 739.67
STR 907.67
only the natural ageing lead to an optimistic power system re-
liability analysis. The line failure model that considers also the
line loading, as proposed in this paper, provides a more realis-
tic response of the network and subsequently a more accurate
reliability index.
C. Reliability Impact of the DTR System
In this section, the impact of the DTR system availability
on the reliability performance of the IEEE-RTN is assessed.
In order to do that, the availability of the DTR system was
decreased from 1 (fully reliable) to 0.2 using a step decrease of
0.2. Only LFM-2 was implemented as it is proven in the previous
sections that it can assess the reliability of the power network
more accurately. The effects of the DTR system (at various
availability values) on the reliability of the IEEE-RTN were
assessed according to the proposed framework in Fig. 5, and the
results are given in Table III. All the results were obtained based
on a 5-year planning period study.
The results show that the reliability of the DTR system has
a significant impact towards the reliability performance of the
IEEE-RTN. As the availability of the DTR system decreases,
the EENS values of the IEEE-RTN increases. Notice that the
EENS value when the DTR system is fully reliable is the same
as the EENS value in Table I. Table III also shows the reliability
performance of the network when no DTR system was installed,
and this represents the STR operational strategy of the transmis-
sion line. Considering only the DTR system cases, the highest
recorded EENS value is 739.67 MWhr/yr when the DTR sys-
tem is only operational for 20% of the time. This value is almost
three times higher than the EENS when the DTR system is fully
functional. The numerical values of the reliability performance
in Table III will likely to be different in a real system as this is
affected by the DTR, load levels, network topology, reliability of
the components, and surrounding weather conditions. Nonethe-
less, the proposed methodology is still applicable. Notice that
the EENS values in Table III are not distributed proportion-
ally in between 100% reliable DTR system and the STR cases.
The reason is the EENS values were determined using a com-
bination of Monte Carlo simulation and DCOPF. The Monte
Carlo simulation handles stochastic component behaviors such
as the combinations of various DTR system and transmission
line statuses, network topologies and both the various genera-
tion and load levels. The combinations with higher probability
of occurrence will be sampled more than the combinations with
lower probability of occurrence. Due to that, the less sampled
1117
Fig. 7. Boxplot of the line unavailability as a function of the DTR system
availability.
events have less influence towards the final EENS values. More-
over, the response of the DCOPF in each combination is unique.
Hence, the EENS that is calculated as a result of the DCOPF, is
distributed nonproportionally as shown in Table III.
The distribution of the line unavailability as a function of the
DTR system reliability was also analyzed and this is presented
as a boxplot in Fig. 7. The unavailability of the line is obtained
according to the procedure described in Fig. 5. The figure shows
that the longer the DTR system is operated (higher reliability),
the higher the chances are to increase the unavailability of the
line. For example, the range of the line unavailability when the
DTR system is operated for 80% of the time is higher than
when the DTR system is operated for only 20% of the time. The
reason for this is when the DTR system is operating, it raises
the rating of the line and subsequently the line loading when
the demand level is high. A higher line loading then, leads to
a higher line unavailability. In the similar situation, if the DTR
system is not operating, the line revert back to its STR, which
limits its maximum capacity that lowers the line loading and
reduces the line unavailability.
Analyzing both Table III and Fig. 7 together suggest that
although the DTR system increases the line unavailability, the
power system reliability benefit provided by the DTR system
far outweighs its drawback of raising the line unavailability. The
values of the EENS consistently decrease when the reliability
of the DTR system improves.
D. Reliability Impact of the Weather Correlation Factor
In this section, the correlation effect of the weather data is
investigated on the LFM-2 only as it assesses the reliability of
the power network more accurately than LFM-1. This study was
performed according to the proposed reliability framework in
Fig. 5 with and without considering the correlation factor during
the weather data samplings. A 5-year regulatory planning period
is used as well, and all the DTR systems were assumed to be
fully reliable in order to avoid it from masking the correlation
factor of the weather data.
The results of this investigation are shown in Table IV.
It shows that the EENS of the IEEE-RTN is dramatically
increased by 555.54 MWhr/yr when the studies were performed
without considering the correlation factor. The reason for this
1118
TABLE IV
EENS OF LFM-2 WITH AND WITHOUT CONSIDERING THE CORRELATION
FACTOR OF THE WEATHER DATA
With Correlation [MWhr/yr] Without Correlation [MWhr/yr]
182.31 737.85
is the sampling of the desirable weather conditions (high line
rating) at a particular transmission corridor is unlikely to be
repeated at other transmission corridors when the correlation
factor is not considered. This leads to a reliability analysis that
is not accurate and is overly pessimistic. Hence, this proves
that the proposed reliability framework that considers the
correlation factor of the weather data is important for a realistic
power system reliability evaluation.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper investigates the impact of transmission line loading
on the reliability of power network. This was performed by
refining the transmission line failure model. Two line failure
models were considered: 1) the line failure model that considers
only the natural ageing of the line (LFM-1) and 2) the line
failure model that considers both the natural ageing of the line
and the loading on the line (LFM-2). The loading of the line
was implemented through the DTR system that is based on the
IEEE 738 standard.
It was shown in the results that LFM-2 provides a more accu-
rate and practical reliability modeling of the transmission line
failure event. The uncertainty of the line failure model param-
eters was also assessed and it was shown that the variability of
the parameters have a significant impact towards the reliability
evaluation of the power system. It has also been demonstrated
that although the DTR system introduces additional line load-
ing, the power system reliability benefit of the DTR system
far outweighs its drawback of raising the line unavailability.
Furthermore, this paper has also proved that considering the
correlation factor of the weather data is important to provide a
realistic power system reliability analysis that is accurate.
Although the finding of the analyses may vary for different
network topologies, this paper establishes a reliability evalua-
tion framework, which can be applied as effectively in other
networks. The accuracy and relevancy of the proposed frame-
work will not be affected by the different network configura-
tions and only the numerical results will change. Consequently,
through the proposed framework and the refined line failure
model LFM-2, a reliability analysis that is accurate and is not
overly optimistic can be obtained. This will assist power sys-
tem operators in taking cost effective decision in regards to the
management of the transmission network.
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Jiashen Teh (M’17) received the B.Eng. degree in
electrical and electronic engineering from Universiti
Tenaga Nasional, Selangor, Malaysia, in 2010, and
the Ph.D. degree in similar field from the University
of Manchester, Manchester, U.K., in 2016.
He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Universiti
Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, and is also an
Advisor for the IET-USM on Campus society. His
research interests include power system reliability
analyses, renewable energy sources, and smart grid
technologies. He is also currently working toward his
professional engineering registration with the BEM and IET.
Dr. Teh is a member of IET and a registered Graduate Engineer with the
Board of Engineers Malaysia in the electrical track.
1119
Ching-Ming Lai (S’06–M’10) received the B.S. de-
gree (Hons.) in aeronautical engineering from the Na-
tional Huwei University of Science and Technology,
Yunlin, Taiwan, in 2004, the M.S. degree in electri-
cal engineering from the National Central University,
Chungli, Taiwan, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering from the National Tsing Hua
University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 2010.
In 2012, he established UPE-Power Technology,
Company, Ltd., Taichung, Taiwan; the company is
developing switching power supplies, and power con-
verters for renewable energy resources. He is currently an Associate Professor
with the Department of Vehicle Engineering, National Taipei University of
Technology (Taipei Tech), Taipei, Taiwan. Since 2016, he also has been with
the Graduate Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Taipei Tech,
Taipei. His research interests include electric vehicles, power electronics, and
high-efficiency energy power conditioning systems.
Dr. Lai is a Life Member of the Taiwan Power Electronics Association and
the Society of Automotive Engineers Taipei, a member of the IEEE Power Elec-
tronics, IEEE Industry Applications, and IEEE Industrial Electronics Societies.
He received the 2008 Young Author’s Award for Practical Application from the
Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, Japan. He received the Best Paper
Award at the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics and
Drive Systems.
Yu-Huei Cheng (M’12) received the M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in electronic engineering from National
Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Kaoh-
siung City, Taiwan, in 2006 and 2010, respectively.
He is currently an Associate Professor of the
Department of Information and Communication
Engineering, Chaoyang University of Technology,
Taichung, Taiwan. His research interests include al-
gorithms, big data, bioinformatics, biomedical en-
gineering, cloud computing, computational biology,
computational intelligence, database, data mining,
electronic circuit, embedded systems, evolutionary computation, fuzzy sys-
tems, information retrieval, internet of things, machine learning, multimedia
engineering, mobile medical, power electronics, and renewable energy.
Dr. Cheng is a Member of the International Association of Engineers, and
a Senior Member of the Universal Association of Computer and Electronics
Engineers.