Maintenance based distribution network expansion planning

This paper develops a reliability-based model for distribution network expansion planning (DNEP) studies. It incorporates the effects of distribution line maintenance in the planning studies to be considered as an alternative for the installation of feeders. To that end, at first, some models are introduced to effectively estimate the effects of maintenance activities budget on distribution lines' failure and repair rates. Therefore, the reliability data of distribution lines are updated in the reliability evaluation studies of distribution networks. Then, these models are involved in the formulation of DNEP problem which is introduced as a multi-objective optimization model. The developed model is solved using the NSGA-II algorithm as a promising technique in solving mixed-integer nonlinear programming problems. The proposed model is tested on IEEE RBTS-Bus6 test system and the results are discussed.