Electrokit | IADB

Infrastructure Adequacy Investments to reduce SAIDI and SAIFI

Investments to reduce SAIDI and SAIFI

In general, new investments in power systems seek primarily to meet the increased load of customers, however it is important to seek investments that are directed exclusively at reducing the outage duration and/or number of cus tomers affected for specific outages, such as:

  • Install an additional fuse: all outages that are related to a specific location have a probability of reducing the number of customers affected.
  • Install sectionalizers: It can isolate faulty portion of distribution line and return service to the circuit.
  • Replace a fuse with a recloser: has a high probability of reducing the duration of all outages related to the fuse that is replaced and causes such as lightning, trees, birds, etc.
  • Place short distribution lines underground: all outages on this feeder with most causes (e.g. , lightning, trees, traffic accidents, etc.) are removed (the utility can select just some areas for this step)
  • Add bird spikes / reflectors: all outages related to birds have a high probability of being reduced.
  • Add a barrier to prevent car accidents from causing outages: outages at the location a barrier is added have a probability of being removed.
  • Increase the utility spending on media outreach to improve awareness and response time: the duration of outage has a probability of being reduced.
  • Install electric energy storage (EES) in rural communities or distant from urban centers, where the installation of cross connects are not economic or even feasible and so maintaining an allowable level of SAIDI.

There is no standard or cost benchmark for quality improvement plans because it depends on the particular case of each company in aspects such as topology ( for emaxple urban-rural topology, radial or redundant networks), network status and indicators in the different regions where service is provided. Depending on the current quality of service level, and on the type of incentives for poor or good quality, the company must carry out a financial evaluation of the investments to define the optimal strategy. For example, in certain radial networks, the definition of the optimal number of reclosers to be installed depends on this analysis.

Electricity grid resilience facing natural events

Natural events can lead to outages with prolonged load interruptions. Although such events are characterized by a high level of unpredictability, utilities have ways of reducing and mitigating their consequences. Some practices for each type of event can be used:

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Structural capacity to verify that electricity distribution is adequate and there is redundancy.

The electric power distribution system must be able to supply all the electric  power demand for the different load levels and improving system redundancy is an important enhancement to increase reliability. Electrical power supply and distribution infrastructure design is conceived to minimize impact due to contingencies, to comply with service standards(quality and continuity) and to renew supply and distribution system elements that take into account the risk of impact on service continuity. In this way, distribution network design criteria exist that  considers the quality of the supply and distribution of electrical energy. Hence, planning and operation of the infrastructure adopts criteria to prevent risk of service interruption and unintended variations in quality (voltage, frequency, capacity, and others).

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Technology deployment

The implementation of new digital devices, communications and control systems can help utilities improve their quality of service. Utilities are deploying advanced technologies to plan, manage, and control electricity delivery to enable safe and reliable two-way flow of electricity and information, support growing numbers of distributed energy resources, and support customers participating in electricity markets as power suppliers and demand managers. These devices include for example phasor measurement units (PMU) and specific technology to track and record outages, such as eReliability Tracker Software or supervisory control and data acquisition ( SCADA ) . For example, PMU technology can detect low-frequency oscillations that were missed by SCADA systems, allowing operators to act and prevent widespread disturbances.

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