Modeling and Evaluating the Resilience of Critical Electrical Power Infrastructure to Extreme Weather Events

TLDR

Electrical power systems are traditionally designed for normal and foreseeable contingencies, yet extreme weather events pose a growing challenge, and the emerging concept of resilience has not yet been adequately explored. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to assess power system resilience under severe weather events. The framework employs a sequential Monte‑Carlo time‑series simulation that applies weather‑ and time‑dependent fragility curves to system components, models resilience within a system‑of‑systems including human response, and is illustrated on the IEEE 6‑bus test system.

Abstract

Electrical power systems have been traditionally designed to be reliable during normal conditions and abnormal but foreseeable contingencies. However, withstanding unexpected and less frequent severe situations still remains a significant challenge. As a critical infrastructure and in the face of climate change, power systems are more and more expected to be resilient to high-impact low-probability events determined by extreme weather phenomena. However, resilience is an emerging concept, and, as such, it has not yet been adequately explored in spite of its growing interest. On these bases, this paper provides a conceptual framework for gaining insights into the resilience of power systems, with focus on the impact of severe weather events. As quantifying the effect of weather requires a stochastic approach for capturing its random nature and impact on the different system components, a novel sequential Monte-Carlo-based time-series simulation model is introduced to assess power system resilience. The concept of fragility curves is used for applying weather- and time-dependent failure probabilities to system's components. The resilience of the critical power infrastructure is modeled and assessed within a context of system-of-systems that also include human response as a key dimension. This is illustrated using the IEEE 6-bus test system.