A Proactive Resilience Enhancement Strategy to Electric Distribution Systems during Hurricanes

Abstract

This paper proposes a probabilistic proactive strategy to enhance operational resilience of distribution power grids in preparation to and during hurricanes. Many of current resilience enhancement strategies focus on determining optimal locations and sizes of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in electric distribution systems to reduce load curtailments during extreme events. Other approaches enhance distribution system resilience through utilizing the concept of microgrid formulation to split the grid into smaller and stable standalone grids. However, the rapid changing conditions and constraints of the power system during extreme events exhibit further computational burden and complexities to provide a fast acting decision process. In this work, a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming optimization problem is formulated to minimize the amount of load curtailments and operational costs. A Markov decision process is developed to model transitions between system states to determine the optimal generation level of each DER considering component failure probabilities, hurricane spatiotemporal properties, and load variations. To maintain reliable and stable operation of electric distribution systems integrated with DERs, system operational and technical constraints should be fulfilled. The CPLEX solver is integrated with MATLAB to formulate and solve the optimization problem. The proposed strategy is demonstrated using a modified IEEE 33-feeder distribution system under various system characteristics. Results show the role of proactive generation redispatch to improve resilience levels and reduce the total amount of load curtailments by 30%-45%.