Powering Through Wildfires: An Integrated Solution for Enhanced Safety and Resilience in Power Grids

Abstract

Safeguarding the nation’s electrical infrastructure and personnel against natural and man-made disasters, and ensuring a continuous, reliable, and resilient supply of energy are among the top priorities for the electric industry. In recent years, wildfires have been remarkably threatening the safety and security of electric power grids demanding innovative frameworks for ensured resilience. Our proposed approach focuses on mitigation of wildfire disruptions that, once occur, can jeopardize the well-being of electrical equipment and the safety of the personnel. The proposed framework first offers a comprehensive wildfire characterization package that can spatiotemporally monitor and analyze the wildfire behaviors, i.e., wildfire intensity, arrival time, and binding paths from ignition points to electrical equipment. This allows power system operators to make proactive decisions before the fire approaches the electrical elements, e.g., power distribution lines. Next, a decision support tool for wildfire management in power grids is proposed such that various local generation resources,—i.e., distributed renewable energy resources and energy storage systems, can be effectively employed to mitigate the wildfire impacts on the power grid. The proposed integrated solution technology ensures a significant reduction in power outages and enhances the safety and resilience of the power grid and the operating personnel.