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Power system reliability measures for residential distribution networks have gained a lot of attention in recent years. This is due to the introduction of smart grids, where the quality of the delivered power becomes a crucial issue. In this paper, a new methodology to include cold load pickup (CLPU) events in the reliability assessment of power distribution systems is proposed. The developed methodology presents a platform to include CLPU events in the reliability assessment assuming an optimal systematic procedure is used to restore the affected load points. The methodology is applied on a test system using a state-of-the-art search technique named lightning search algorithm (LSA). The optimal plan takes into account electrical code protection system settings, system operation limits, and stochastic behavior of the load. The reliability indices for a base case without considering CLPU is compared with the case that considers CLPU assuming an optimal restoration. Both cases are compared further under fixed-restoration plans with different time intervals. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology to improve the distribution network reliability by considering the CLPU events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]