Optimal trade-offs in distribution protection design

The number, type and location of the protective devices on a distribution f eeder have a direct effect on the system reliability. In earlier work, a te chnique was developed to design a protective system in order to minimize th e SAIFI index, This paper extends earlier results by using a goal programmi ng approach to achieve compromises among various engineering objectives. Th e design goals are: a) to minimize the SAIFI and ASIFI indices by identifyi ng types and locations of protective devices and b) to achieve a reasonable trade-off between a decrease in the SAIFI index and an increase in MAIFI i ndex by identifying where a fuse saving scheme should be applied. Numerical examples highlight the approach.