Organization Simulation in Probabilistic Reliability Calculation

Today's regulatory demands are providing strong incentives for cost reduction to network operators. If no corrective measures are taken by national regulation authorities (NRA) a substantial negative effect can occur: A reduction of costs at the expense of the customers' quality of supply. To prevent this, in 2012 the German NRA has implemented a quality regulation scheme, so that network operators are forced to integrate aspects of quality of supply in their considerations of cost reductions. This paper presents an approach which allows the simultaneous simulation of network asset and operational service staff to quantify their impacts on quality of supply. A detailed model of the network structure is used to determine failure events and the respective remedial strategy and the impact on customers' demands. A detailed organization model displays the distribution system operators' organizational structure and its employees. Thus, it is possible to discover strengths and weaknesses in the network structure and the organization of service staff simultaneously in one model. The focus of this paper is to present the additional value the reliability calculation gains by the extensive simulation of network operators' organization and the corresponding operational service staff.