Analysis and enhancement of Barcelona’s power grid resilience

Abstract

Climate change is causing an increase in extreme weather events that can stress the electric grid as it was not originally designed to withstand them, and at the same time, new unexpected threats emerge such as cyberattacks making the grid more vulnerable. On top of that, situations such as the new pandemic of Covid-19 pose the grid under new scenarios of large load reduction where renewable energies gain importance and traditional sources are strongly curtailed. On this basis, the resilience of the electrical grid turns into a key feature to be analysed and strongly enhanced. Thus, the power grid is being analysed by researchers in recent years to assess such hazards along with what measures or resources are effective against them, such as distributed energy resources based on renewable energies. Based on these studies, this paper aims to explore which power grid resilience KPIs fit more to describe the scenarios of the disruptive events for the consequent discussion of the installation of renewable sources to prioritize investments in order to minimize impacts. Furthermore, a geographic information system based model is developed to analyse a static study case of flooding in the city of Barcelona. Results show that the city’s power grid is vulnerable to the scenario, but it has the potential of renewable energies to mitigate its consequences.