Volume 22: Sustainable Energy Solutions for a Post-COVID Recovery towards a Better Future: Part V

Optimal Branch Upgrade to Enhance Distribution Network Resilience Xuyang Wang, Chenghong Gu

Abstract

The growing frequency of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and flooding, have brought new challenges including higher uncertainty of power supplies to the reliability of modern distribution networks. Resilience is introduced in the electrical engineering field to quantify the ability of a system to withstand and recover from external disturbances. This paper proposes a novel algorithm to optimize strategies for enhancing distribution network resilience by branch upgrade. According to the Extreme Value Theory, the method determines the failure probability of branches based on their physical strength under hurricanes during a designed lifetime. The method of Monte Carlo simulation is applied in the optimization model to maximize resilience. The result shows the optimal solution converges and compared with traditional methods that enhance main branches or upgrade as many branches as possible, the proposed method has a significant advantage in seeking the globally optimal solution.

Keywords resilience, distribution network, planning, hurricane, Monte Carlo simulation