Restoration duration estimation applying generally distributed transition stochastic Petri nets considering the switching failure of breakers

Once blackouts occur the system operators should re-energise the affected system in the shortest time. To attain this, restoration plans should be developed beforehand. A deliberate restoration plan considers the supply duration of the cranking power to non-black-start units (NBSUs), besides the static and dynamic constraints of the power system. Hence, there should be a method to estimate the restoration duration of NBSUs considering the failure in breakers operating mechanism and the stochastic nature of restoration actions. Accordingly, in this study, generally distributed transition stochastic Petri net is employed to calculate the supply duration of NBSUs, critical loads and the execution time of restoration actions. This is significant because the planners can validate their restoration plans from the NBSUs critical times’ point of view or determine energisation time of critical loads. The proposed method has been applied in three test cases, two of these are used for benchmarking, and the other one is a part of Iran bulk power system, which includes a real black-start test. The results show the effectiveness of the method in estimating the restoration duration.