ABSTRACT
The paper describes the results of the reliability study conducted on the Gela petrochemical factory electric system. It discusses an improved technique to carry out reliability analyses on the electric system, power plant and distribution network, in terms of frequency and duration of the derated states of the system during one year. The computation method is based on the search for the minimal cut-sets, using a logical operation diagram (reliability block diagram), supplemented with the Ford & Fulkerson algorithm. The search for the minimal cut-sets takes into account some functions which represent the system operation condition.
Homogeneous random Markov processes are used to assess probability, frequency and duration of the annual system availability for every derated state defined by the fault of one or more system components. Histograms of probability distribution and frequency vs. power flow values in the various states are included.
