Development of empirical vulnerability curves for electrical supply systems subjected to wind hazard

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a series of empirical vulnerability curves for energy distribution infrastructure in the UK, specifically for overhead line components, when subjected to wind storm hazard. We have achieved this by combining an atmospheric model, driven by reanalysis data, with empirical fault data from 1991 to 2010. The fault data used in this study comes from a national database of electricity distribution faults. While the fault data in this database is comprehensive, it has the deficiency of not recording the exact location of the fault, instead it only indicates which District Network Operator owned the asset. Better fault location information is available, but this is only available from the Operator. We also investigate the sensitivity of vulnerability curves to three different resolutions of the fault information; namely by Operator, Region and Area in order to evaluate the impact that this has to the vulnerability curve. From the results shown in this paper, we can conclude that the spatial resolution of the hazard data can have a significant impact to the vulnerability curve, particularly for large wind storm hazards.