  With the increase in awareness about the climate change, there has been a
tremendous shift towards utilizing renewable energy sources (RES). In this
regard, smart grid technologies have been presented to facilitate higher
penetration of RES. Microgrids are the key components of the smart grids.
Microgrids allow integration of various distributed energy resources (DER) such
as the distributed generation (DGs) and energy storage systems (ESSs) into the
distribution system and hence remove or delay the need for distribution
expansion. One of the crucial requirements for utilities is to ensure that the
system reliability is maintained with the inclusion of microgrid topology.
Therefore, this paper evaluates the reliability of a microgrid containing
prioritized loads and distributed RES through a hybrid analytical-simulation
method. The stochasticity of RES introduces complexity to the reliability
evaluation. The method takes into account the variability of RES through Monte-
Carlo state sampling simulation. The results indicate the reliability
enhancement of the overall system in the presence of the microgrid topology. In
particular, the highest priority load has the largest improvement in the
reliability indices. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is performed to
understand the effects of the failure of microgrid islanding in the case of a
fault in the upstream network.
