Automated Switching Operation for Resilience Enhancement of Distribution Systems

This paper proposes a model to assess and quantify the impacts of automated fault location, isolation and service restoration (FLISR) on resilience of power distribution systems against wide-spread failure events (e.g., natural disasters). The proposed model includes defining and formulating six probabilistic metrics that capture the capability of FLISR system in fast restoration of load after outage scenarios. In addition, this paper elaborates the contribution of different automation components, such as fault locators and remotely-controlled switches, to each of the proposed metrics. The proposed model is utilized to assess the resilience of a three-feeder test distribution system against hurricane. The numerical results show that the proposed metrics reflect the impacts of different automation strategies on enhancing resilience of the system, which provide critical information for making decisions on implementing the resilience enhancement strategies in distribution systems.