Influence of extreme weather and climate change on the resilience of power systems: Impacts and possible mitigation strategies

Abstract

A key driver for developing more sustainable energy systems is to decrease the effects of climate change, which could include an increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of severe weather events. Amongst others, extreme weather has a significant impact on critical infrastructures, and is considered one of the main causes of wide-area electrical disturbances worldwide. In fact, weather-related power interruptions often tend to be of high impact and sustained duration, ranging from hours to days, because of the large damage on transmission and distribution facilities. Hence, enhancing the grid resilience to such events is becoming of increasing interest. In this outlook, this paper first discusses the influence of weather and climate change on the reliability and operation of power system components. Since modelling the impact of weather is a difficult task because of its stochastic and unpredicted nature, a review of existing methodologies is provided in order to get an understanding of the key modelling approaches, challenges and requirements for assessing the effect of extreme weather on the frequency and duration of power system blackouts. Then, the emerging concept of resilience is discussed in the context of power systems as critical infrastructure, including several defense plans for boosting the resilience of power systems to extreme weather events. A comprehensive modelling research framework is finally outlined, which can help understand and model the impact of extreme weather on power systems and how this can be prevented or mitigated in the future.