Research on Resilience of Power Systems Under Natural Disasters—A Review

TLDR

Natural disasters can cause large blackouts, but emerging technologies such as smart grids, microgrids, and wide‑area monitoring may improve situational awareness and accelerate restoration. The paper seeks to consolidate and review progress in forecasting, hardening, pre‑storm operations, and restoration models for power systems affected by natural disasters, thereby advancing grid resilience. The authors review existing forecasting methods, hardening strategies, pre‑storm operational tools, and restoration models to assess their effectiveness in mitigating disaster‑induced disturbances. The review highlights challenges and outlines future research opportunities to strengthen power system resilience against natural disasters.

Abstract

Natural disasters can cause large blackouts. Research into natural disaster impacts on electric power systems is emerging to understand the causes of the blackouts, explore ways to prepare and harden the grid, and increase the resilience of the power grid under such events. At the same time, new technologies such as smart grid, micro grid, and wide area monitoring applications could increase situational awareness as well as enable faster restoration of the system. This paper aims to consolidate and review the progress of the research field towards methods and tools of forecasting natural disaster related power system disturbances, hardening and pre-storm operations, and restoration models. Challenges and future research opportunities are also presented in the paper.