Reliability Importance Measures-Based Analysis of Substation Communication Network

Abstract

Smart grid can work effectively only when a reliable, fast communication network is available. The communication network is a prerequisite to connect different protection, control, and monitoring equipment within the substation. Ethernet fulfills all the requisites such as reliable, fast, secure, interoperable, LAN-based communication system for smart substations. Therefore, the main aspect is to improve the reliability of the network by prioritizing the critical components by using the knowledge of component importance measures (CIM). In this chapter, analysis of IEC 61850 ethernet-based substation communication network (SCN) architectures has been examined using various reliability importance measures (RIM). The importance measures namely Birnbaum, improvement potential, criticality importance, and reliability achievement worth have given their justified rankings of the various components of SCN architectures. The practice of these CIMs works towards the identification of the components that can be allocation of resources for the improvement of system reliability.