Abstract

Transient performance analysis of power distribution network (PDN) after a failure occurrence could facilitate the better design of smart grid. Researchers have proposed analytical models and the numerical solutions to analyze the PDN's transient behaviors by applying homogeneous continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC). However, the PDN system may be time-varying during a failure recovery. Then, the system restoration process evolves as a non-homogeneous CTMC (NHCTMC) on a finite state space. This paper seeks to analyze the transient performance of such a time-varying system from a failure occurrence until the system's full restoration. This restoration process consists of multiple phases which are sequential or in parallel. We apply piecewise constant approximation method to derive the formulas for computing state transient probabilities and then derive the computation formulas for the metrics of interest. A case study is conducted to apply the proposed approach to analyze the transient performance of a simple distribution automation network. This network was derived from a real power distribution network. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.