Reliability improvement in smart grid through incorporating energy storage systems in service restoration

Smart grid has been developing nowadays as an initiative to operate modern electric distribution systems (EDSs) in a more reliable and efficient manner. With the decreasing price of the energy storage systems (ESSs), ESSs are highly recommended to be exploited in the operation of EDSs. In this manuscript, a comprehensive framework is introduced for ESS incorporation in service restoration process which proposes 2 roles for ESSs in the service restoration. As the first role, ESSs are exploited in the service restoration to re-energize customers in interrupted zones, as their backup units. As the second role, ESSs are used in the service restoration to increase the number of interrupted customers which transferred to the backup feeders through acting as storage units. The proposed objective function of service restoration consists of customer interruption cost, energy not sold cost, cost of electricity production in combined heat and power units, and cost of ESS incorporation in service restoration. Moreover, the stochastic characteristics of ESS contribution in service restoration are considered in the proposed problem formulation. Further, the impacts of the uncertainties of the service restoration on the proposed approach for ESS incorporation are investigated. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is deliberated using a standard reliability test system (RBTS-4). The obtained results show that the incorporating ESSs as storage units will lead to substantially improve the reliability level of EDS through increasing the adequacy of the EDS during service restoration process.