This thesis studied the possibilities to monitor disconnectors’ operating times to indicate when maintenance needs to be performed. The main hypothesis of this study was that the operational time in a disconnector manoeuvre, open or close, correlates with the resistance in the mechanical components. If the operational time deviates too much from the baseline duration, then this may indicate that the disconnector needs to be maintained. Five substudies were conducted to study if it was possible to monitor the operating time and if the logged operating times had been affected by external conditions. Together they illustrated it might be possible to monitor operating times, but this study cannot state it with certainty based on the available data. From the results, it was possible to see that normal operating times for disconnectors varied within a group of disconnectors of the same type and manufacturer. Why it differed within groups of the same type and manufacturer might be explained by the effects of external conditions. It was shown that a varying transfer time occurred when logging the operation times in the front end processor. Furthermore, the year of production of the disconnector affected the median operating time, but it did not affect the operating time in an intuitive way, that is the operating time did not get longer for older disconnectors. Also, the geographical position of the disconnector may affect the operating time. When these external conditions were considered, disconnectors were concluded necessary to be studied individually. If disconnectors would be studied individually condition monitoring might be possible, although, it is not possible at the moment because of the lack of observations per disconnector.

The power distribution system is the final link to transfer the electrical energy to the individual customers. It is distributed in a complex technical grid but is associated with the majority of all outages occurring. Improving its reliability is an efficient way to reduce the effects of outages. A common way of improving the reliability is by designing loop structures containing two connected feeders separated by a section point. The location of the section point will decide how the system structure is connected and its level of reliability. By finding the optimal location, an improved reliability may be accomplished. This Master’s thesis has developed a method of finding optimized section points locations in a primary distribution system in order to improve its reliability. A case study has been conducted in a part of Mälarenergi Elnät’s distribution system with the objective of developing an algorithm in MATLAB able to generate the optimal section points in the area. An analytical technique together with a method called Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) as preparatory step, was used to simulate the impact of outages in various components based on historical data and literature reviews. Quantifying the impact was made by calculating the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and the Expected Cost (ECOST) which represented the reliability from a customer- and a socio-economic perspective. Using an optimization routine based on a Greedy algorithm an improvement of the reliability was made possible. The result of the case study showed a possible improvement of 28% on SAIDI and 41% on ECOST if optimizing the location of section points. It also indicated that loop structures containing mostly industry-, trade- and service-sectors may improve ECOST considerably by having a relocated section point. The analysis concluded that based on the considerable improvement the case study showed, a distribution system could be highly benefitted by optimizing the location of section points. The created algorithm may provide a helpful tool well representative for such a process in a cost-effective way. Applying it into a full size system was considered being possible but it would first require some additional improvements of reliability inputs and to resolve some fundamental issues like rated current in lines and geographical distances to substations.