Enhancing power system resilience leveraging microgrids: A review

Abstract

An electrical power system is considered as a critical infrastructure (CI), the epicenter of a nation's economy, security, and health. It is interlinked with other CIs such as gas and water supplies and transportation and communication systems. A failure in the power system will immensely affect the functionality of these CIs. Therefore, enhancing power system resilience is crucially needed to ensure continuous operation of these CIs. One of the possible approaches to improve the resilience in a power system is by integrating microgrids in the power system. Microgrids have proven to have self-healing and resilient capabilities in such extreme events which inflict damage out of the conventional scope of failures. Operational flexibility and controllability make microgrids a viable solution for resilience enhancement. This paper reviews the concept of resilience in power systems and the functions of microgrids in enhancement of resilience. The most current studies in improving power system resilience through microgrids are reviewed by highlighting their advantages and limitations.