Risk Assessment of Power Systems Against Wildfires

Power systems are vulnerable to wildfires, suffering prolonged outages and severe damage to their critical infrastructure. Although several studies have attempted to analyze the impact of wildfires on power system performance, there are currently limited risk assessment applications that support well-informed decision-making during the progression of wildfires. This research presents a novel risk assessment methodology that comprehensively assesses the extent of the impact due to wildfire events. The risk assessment performs real-time monitoring of the wildfire event and evaluates the risk exposure in each simulation step, considering the available topology of the network, environmental conditions, and progression and severity of the event. The risk assessment is tested on a 36-bus representation of the Concepcion power system, one of the most affected zones during the firestorm that hit Chile in 2017. Such a risk assessment tool provides a comprehensible understanding of the risk according to the severity of the wildfire event, being very beneficial for developing operational strategies to improve the reliability and resilience of power systems.