A novel Tool for Hybrid AC/DC Grids Optimization and Reliability Assessment

The growing interest towards the renewable energy sources remarks the relevance of smart grid exploiting in the electrical scenario. If in one hand smart grids introduces new perspective in the global energy management, on the other hand such innovative approach highlights the necessity to face with several issues related to the hybrid networks. Among them, the reliability of AC/DC hybrid grids is a crucial aspect for the effective development of hybrid smart grid. Studies on reliability of hybrid grids are present in the literature at component level, while the reliability related to the integration of smart grids in a traditional AC network is not exhaustively discussed. The present work proposes a Reliability Assessment Tool (RAT) aimed to the evaluation of specific hybrid grid configurations, as well as to manage contingency issues aimed to improve the safety and sustainability performances.