The increasing trend in electrical energy consumption leads to increase the amount of stress imposed on the equipment and subsequently reduces their life. On the other hand, in a restructured and competitive electricity environment, system operators are looking for increasing the profitability, efficiency, and service life of their network equipment while considering customer welfare. Transformers are one of the most expensive elements of the distribution network, and improving their service life increases the efficiency and reliability of the network. Therefore, in this paper, by proposing a new cost-benefit objective function, an optimal demand response model is proposed in order to extend the life of distribution transformers considering technical and economic constraints. The life extension results are analyzed by translating them into economic concepts and the amount of profits and losses made by implementing the presented method are investigated. The proposed method is applied on a realistic distribution network of Sirjan city in Iran for eight typical days, corresponding to seasons and to weekdays and weekends. It should be noted that the optimization problem is carried out by taking into account the complex patterns of different types of consumers and their combination. The results show a significant reduction in the loss of life rate of distribution transformers along with reduction in loss of energy, which bring considerable benefits to the distribution network's stakeholders.
KeywordsDistribution transformers • Loss of life • Demand response programs B Behrooz Vahidi