A novel approach for assessing the impact of voltage sag events on customer operations

Abstract

The business activities of the majority of industrial and commercial customers are dependent on some critical equipments that are susceptible to voltage sag events. Malfunctioning of sensitive devices against voltage sags has a detrimental effect on the operation of the customers. Although previous studies have proposed assessment methods to calculate the financial impact of voltage sag events on these critical devices but the approach of the methodologies are limited to specific case studies with particular customer operations and cannot be applied to diverse customers.

This thesis aims to propose a novel and generic evaluation approach for estimating the financial impact of voltage sag events on customer operations. The proposed technique is based on the event tree method. Using this approach, it is possible to consider the impacts of operational failure of various sensitive equipments involved in the customer operations on the financial losses expected from voltage sag events. A methodology, based on the developed approach, is also proposed for analyzing the effectiveness and practical viability of various voltage sag mitigation solutions. A quantitative case study is conducted in the thesis to illustrate the applicability of the purposed approach. Moreover, a comparative assessment was made to find out the applicability of various mitigation options. The method can be applied by customers to select the most economical mitigation option for their operations