  Reliability Assessment is an indispensable technology for identifying,
interpreting, and lessening the potential failures in safety-critical systems
like smart grids. Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is one of the well
documented techniques for risk analysis to study the impact of failure modes on
safety critical systems like smart grid. In traditional FMEA failure modes are
prioritized based on a numeric assessment known as risk priority number. Risk
priority number (RPN) is defined as the product of three risk factors namely
severity (S), occurrence (O), and detection (D). These risk factors are
generally attained by extensive team efforts and judgments which can lead to
errors and inconsistencies. To address the shortcomings of the traditional
FMEA, a fuzzy-based FMEA approach is proposed to generate reliable risk
priority rankings. In this study, traditional and fuzzy-based FMEA risk
priority rankings for smart grid electrical distribution systems are compared
and recommendations are made based on the analysis. Results prove the
efficiency of the proposed fuzzy-FMEA method.
