Estimation of Affected Customers and Load Loss Under Wind Storms in the Caribbean Region

Abstract

The disruption of extreme weather events can significantly impact the operation of nation’s critical infrastructures. With the growing trend of extreme weather events in the Caribbean region, evaluating hazard effects of wind storms on power distribution systems becomes increasingly important for disaster preparedness and fast responses in utilities. These catastrophic events disable critical paths of electricity overhead infrastructure, resulting in extended power outages and loss of critical services. In this article, probabilistic wind storm models for the study region have been built by mining the 169-year storm events recorded in the Hurricane Database from the National Hurricane Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In addition, a simulation approach is presented to evaluate the impacts of wind storms over the power distribution system under different levels of hazards using a random storm trajectory generator and geographic information system data. Extensive studies for the Puerto Rico’s electrical distribution system indicate that our models and procedure effectively estimate the number of affected customers and load loss due to a wind storm impact.