Siting Energy Storage and Distribution Resources for Societal Benefit During Long-Term Outages

Natural or man-made disasters can disrupt electricity supply for long periods, resulting in significant human cost. We report an algorithm that designs microgrids with energy storage and distributed generation for societal benefit by assuring that critical services such as medical care, food, etc. have power throughout a long-duration outage. The algorithm employs search space decomposition, graph topology, and heuristics to efficiently find a high-quality solution, assuring even coverage of priority services. Energy storage plays a key role by enabling power delivery over a long duration without fuel resupply. We present an example demonstrating the algorithm's ability to respond to critical service priorities, electric distribution constraints, geospatial threats, and various outage duration targets.