A Quantitative Framework to Evaluate the Resilience Enhancement in Power Distribution Feeders During Adverse Weather Events

The idea of power system resilience has become a matter of concern especially due to unexpected natural disasters sprouting from climate change in recent times. Yet, there is no consensus in the set of metrics to evaluate resilience. Hence, this paper presents a comprehensive and unified resilience analysis framework based on the operational performance of the distribution feeders. A set of resilience sub-metrics are proposed with each one capturing a specific aspect of resilience like worst performance, resistivity to disruptions, recovery rapidity and accumulated loss. Moreover, a unified resilience metric is devised including all the sub-metrics to provide an integrated assessment of resilience for the distribution system. The proposed framework is tested on an 85-bus distribution feeder (Feeder-85) to assess its resilience towards adverse weather events. The original feeder is then provided with various reinforcements and their contribution to the feeder’s resilience is evaluated. The results clearly indicate capability of the proposed metrics to quantify power system resilience and provide directions for optimally reinforcing the system against adverse weather events.