Coordination of resilience interventions by proactive consumers and the supplying utility

Abstract

Pursuing resilience enhancement, we propose a hierarchical decision-making framework for proactive consumers and the supplying utility interacting through an electricity distribution system. Such decision framework enables identifying solutions that are optimal for both the leading partner, the electric utility, and the other agents, proactive consumers and non-proactive consumers, that react to the decisions of the leading agent. Resilience improvement interventions include installing batteries and undergrounding distribution lines. The proposed technique can be helpful to distribution system planners, who can use it to optimally coordinate the resilience enhancement investments by the electric utility and proactive consumers. We analyze cases pertaining to realistic distribution systems.