Heavy-Tailed Transmission Line Restoration Times Observed in Utility Data

Abstract

The empirical probability distribution of transmission line restoration times is obtained from 14 years of field data from a large utility. The distribution of restoration times has a heavy tail that indicates that long restoration times, although less frequent, routinely occur. The heavy tail differs from the convenient assumption of exponentially distributed restoration times, impacts power system resilience, and makes estimates of the mean restoration time highly variable.