Decision support tool for enabling resiliency in an underground power distribution system

Natural disasters cause substantial damage to power distribution infrastructure with long duration of power outages. A resilient Power Distribution System (PDS) should be able to quickly absorb, adapt and recover from the catastrophic events. Enabling resiliency in the PDS is a new imperative for utilities to reduce financial losses, enhance customer satisfaction and supply critical loads in the network. Modern underground PDS comprise of underground feeders and overhead components. Though, these PDS are considered to be highly reliable; however, they still remain vulnerable to catastrophic events by virtue of their locations, age, maintenance and other factors. These factors have a direct impact on resiliency assessment of the system. Quick and accurate decision making by the network operator during and immediately after a natural disaster can make significant impact on the restoration of the system, particularly critical loads. This paper proposes a set of metrics for evaluation of resiliency for underground power distribution networks and a decision support tool for the network operator to enable resiliency in a PDS during network planning and operational contingency scenarios. It facilitates the decision making process to supply all critical loads in the network under all possible scenarios. The proposed decision support tool to enable resiliency is tested through simulation study on a real 110 Bus, 11 kV, underground PDS of CESC Limited, in Patuli area of Kolkata, India.

Automated summary

Resilience in power distribution systems is crucial to quickly absorb, adapt and recover from catastrophic events like natural disasters. Despite being considered highly reliable, underground power distribution networks are still vulnerable to factors such as location and maintenance, impacting the system's resiliency assessment. Quick and accurate decision-making by network operators during and after disasters has a significant impact on system restoration and supplying critical loads.