A Comprehensive Review of Thermal Power Plants Reliability Using Stochastic Methods

Abstract

Abstract Adequate and reliable electricity supplies are essential for socio-economic transformation of any nation. Therefore, in the current competitive market, the major focus of any power utility should be to provide consumers with electrical energy in the most economical way, with a high quality and reliability level. On a global scale, reliable electric power availability has been observed as effective and indispensable machinery for the rapid industrial and economic growth of any nation. Efficient and quality energy supply continuity has become one of the more relevant factors of development both in Industrialized and in Developing Countries; therefore, a suitable analysis is recommended to reach a sound compromise between service quality and cost. The analysis of reliability has increasingly been accepted as a basic tool for designing, operation scheduling and maintenance of any system. A power system is expected to supply electrical energy as economical as possible and with a high level of quality and reliability. The reliability of a power system can be evaluated deterministically or probabilistically. The use of deterministic reliability indices in terms of generating reserve capacity is now considered obsolete. Hence, in this study, reliability assessments using probabilistic indices to estimate the operational reliability of thermal power plants have been comprehensively reviewed. This paper concludes that a probabilistic approach of assessing thermal power plants is more result-oriented than deterministic approach.