Reliability enhancement of Uganda's power system to extreme weather events.

Abstract

The physical environment in which a power system operates has a significant impact on the reliability of the network due to the physical stresses it creates on the overhead distribution and transmission system. Extreme weather conditions greatly enhance the system failure rate by increasing the likelihood of multiple line failures. Extreme weather may also limit access to the fault location thus increasing the repair duration as well as the quantity of unserved energy. This project investigates and quantifies the impact of these extreme weather events on the reliability of Uganda’s distribution network and presents possible mitigation measures. The project focused on the worst performing feeders as the case study. These feeders included; (TRM/MBL/33/1) and MBL/KMI/33/1 in Eastern Uganda, LRA/KTG/33/1 in Northern Uganda, and ISH/RUK/33/1 in Western Uganda. Data collected from UMEME using ArcGIS was used to model the feeders in Dig SILENT Power Factory. Raw fault drivers’ data from UMEME was then categorized and fed into Dig SILENT to determine the reliability under two different scenarios which included; without considering faults due to extreme weather events and while considering faults due to extreme weather events. The indices considered during this study were SAIDI and ENS. Extreme weather events were found to increase the SAIDI and ENS by approximately 50%. Basing on the implementation of the proposed solutions, incorporation of automated switching schemes were found to be more technically and financially feasible, as they improved the SAIDI by 70.3%, ENS by 65.7% and realized a lower payback period.