This information is necessary to ensure an acceptable level of security of electricity supply for decisions on all planning horizons: from short-term operational planning to long-term asset management and system development.
The objective of the VulPro project is to develop knowledge and methods for long-term prognosis of the risk to reliability of supply. New methods should be able to inform decisions in both power system asset management and system development in the Nordic power system in a consistent manner. Specifically, the methodologies will account for
- the condition and spatial location of power system components
- the long-term development and uncertainties in risk-influencing factors,
- interdependencies between the asset management and system development planning horizons.
One key challenge the project will have to overcome is to bridge the gap between individual assets and the power system in analyses of reliability of supply. The figure below gives a simplified illustration of a knowledge gap associated with the lack of consistency between risk analysis carried out at an asset level (left, traditionally for asset management purposes) and at a power system level (right, traditionally for system development purposes): The former focuses on a single asset or component in the power system (e.g. a transformer station) but does not properly account for its importance in the power system for the reliability of supply; the latter takes a broader view of the power system but usually neglects how the condition of individual components influences their probability of failure and how this contributes to the overall power system risk with regard to reliability of supply.
Another important challenge is that component condition and other risk-influencing factors are associated with uncertainties, which develop with time. The project seeks to quantify and propagate these uncertainties in the risk prognosis. Better knowledge will provide a more complete risk picture and has the potential to help system planners to identify vulnerabilities associated with power supply interruptions with severe consequences to reliability of supply. Ultimately, better information about how the risk may develop over time ensures the security of supply while enabling the power system to continue integrating more variable renewable energy.
Blog posts:
- “When should I replace an old transformer?”, J. Foros, I. B. Sperstad, #SINTEFblog, 2022.
- “Hvordan påvirker teknisk tilstand til transformatorer leveringspåliteligheten?” H. Toftaker, #SINTEFblogg, 2023.
Webinars:
- “Risiko, nett-utnytting og samanhengen mellom komponenttilstand og leveringspålitelegheit – resultat frå KSP-prosjektet VulPro”, Iver Bakken Sperstad, Ivar Bjerkebæk, Erlend Sandø Kiel, CINELDI-webinar, SINTEF, 2024.
Conference and journal articles:
- “Accounting for uncertainties due to high-impact low-probability events in power system development”, H. Toftaker, J. Foros, and I. B. Sperstad, I. B. Sperstad, G. H. Kjølle, and E. Ø. Norum, Electric Power Systems Research, vol. 193, p. 107015, 2021.
- “Accounting for component condition and preventive retirement in power system reliability analyses”, H. Toftaker, J. Foros, and I. B. Sperstad, ‘Accounting for component condition and preventive retirement in power system reliability analyses’, IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution, vol. 5, no. 1, 2023.
- “Integrating component condition in long-term power system reliability analysis”, H. Toftaker and I. B. Sperstad, in Proceedings of the 32nd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2022), Dublin, 2022.
- “Health index calculation using failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis for high-voltage circuit breakers”, J. A. Grant, I. B. Sperstad, J. Foros, V. V. Vadlamudi, in Proceedings of the 33rd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2023), Southampton, 2023.
- “A transformer outage duration model with application to asset management decision support”, E. S. Kiel, M. D. Catrinu-Renstrøm, and G. H. Kjølle, in Proceedings of the 33rd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2023), Southampton, 2023.
- “A Monte Carlo sampling procedure for rare events applied to power system reliability analysis”, E. S. Kiel and G. H. Kjølle, in 2023 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Europe (ISGT EUROPE), 2023.
- “Estimating uncertainty in reliability of supply analyses considering component condition”, E. S. Kiel, M. D. Catrinu-Renstrøm, and G. H. Kjølle, in Proceedings of the 33rd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2023), Southampton, 2023.
- “Reliability Assessment Combining Importance Resampling and the Cross Entropy Method”, I. Bjerkebæk and H. Toftaker, Electric Power Systems Research (presented at the 2024 Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC2024), vol. 234, p. 110722, 2024.
- “High-Voltage Circuit Breaker Condition-Dependent Failure Rate with Covariates”, J. A. Grant, H. Toftaker, S. Perkin, I. B. Sperstad, V. V. Vadlamudi, presented at the 2024 Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS2024), Albuquerque, 2024.
- “Simulating the Long Term Effect of Asset Management Strategies on Reliability of Supply”, I. Bjerkebæk, I. B. Sperstad, H. Toftaker, and G. Kjølle, 2024, TechRxiv (pre-print).
- “The impact of high-voltage circuit breaker condition on power system reliability indices”, J. A. Grant, I. B. Sperstad, V. V. Vadlamudi, S. Perkin, E. S. Kiel, 2024, pre-print.
Master theses:
- “The Cross Entropy Algorithm Applied to Monte Carlo Simulation of Power System Reliability“, I. Bjerkebæk, Master thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, 2023.
