Earthquake Effects on Electricity Network: A Case Study in Turkish Grid

Disasters have numerous negative impacts on communities such as human losses, and the destruction of infrastructure like water, natural gas, and electricity. Among the natural disasters, earthquakes are unexpected and the most destructive of all. Power outages are the most common effect during and after major earthquake strikes. The duration and the effects of outages depend on the damages to equipment in the center of an earthquake and may spread all over the transmission line. The earthquake hit on February 6, 2023 at 04.17 a.m. and affected southeast Turkey. Because of this natural disaster, failure occurred in the Southeast Anatolia Region (which is Southeast of Turkey) due to damages to the substations, power transmission lines, and the destruction of infrastructure; a blackout was experienced throughout the affected region. This blackout spread through power transmission lines as voltage sag/swell. This study focuses on the generation, transmission, and distribution level event logs the day the earthquake hit. The main focuses of the study are the decrease in power generation, voltage sag/swell events in both transmission and distribution grids which spread all over the transmission grid.