Adapting network operation philosophy to improve customer's quality of supply

The power supply industry has to cope with a strongly increasing cost pressure. Measures to reduce investment cost and/or operating cost generally will have negative effects on the customer's quality of supply. However, quality of supply will be a key aspect for customers and energy suppliers in the evolving competition. Methods to improve quality of supply normally require changes in the network structure or the usage of special equipment. In most cases, such methods will cause considerable investment costs. This paper investigates the effect of different operation philosophies for a given network structure on the customer's reliability of supply. Adapted operation philosophies-e.g. a new switching state for an individual substation-can be realized with comparably low financial effort.