Loss of Load Probability of a Power System: Kerala February 2010

By virtue of the vital nature of electric power, both to our economic and personal well being, a power system is expected to supply electrical energy as economically as possible, and with a high degree of quality and reliability. The developed countries in general place higher reliability standards on the performance of electricity supply. However, there has been no significant study in the context of the Indian power sector to analyze reliability in terms of loss of load probability; the technical appraisal of the State power systems in general is confined to examining the plant load factor (PLF) as a measure of capacity utilization only. The present study is a modest attempt to evaluate the reliability of the Kerala power system in India in the framework of a theory-informed methodology: following a detailed discussion of the methodology used in this study, the maximum likelihood estimates of availability and forced outage rates as well as loss of load probability measures are calculated for the 10 hydropower plants of Kerala. [Working Paper No. 423] URL: [http://www.cds.edu/]