Reliability Study of Stand-alone Hybrid Renewable Energy Microgrids

This paper proposed new indices for investigating the reliability of the microgrid at different levels. The microgrid used has been developed in DigSILENT software and is comprised of wind, solar, battery storage and a diesel generator. The software was used to observe the effect of system demand and the failure rate of each component at three indices levels. Different simulations had shown that an increase in the system demand affects average energy not supplied, EIC, and average customer curtailment index. Also, at load point, LPIC and load point energy not supply among others are sensitive to system demand. This work proposes a new approach to study the effect of network structure on the reliability of a microgrid. The proposed method employs the prioritization of component importance on microgrid configuration. The results obtained show that the contribution of components to the system’s reliability depends on the network structure. This could be used in identifying direction, priority, and upgrading and suggests the most efficient way to operate and maintain a microgrid.