Understanding Trade-Offs in Resilience Planning Decisions for Power Distribution Systems

Extreme weather events adversely affect power distribution systems, making it challenging to justify planning budgets due to increasing uncertainty. This paper presents sensitivity analyses of resilience-based active distribution system planning solutions with respect to different parameters. The distribution system planning problem is formulated as a two-stage risk-averse stochastic optimization model with conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) as the risk measure. Probabilistic scenarios are obtained using regional wind profiles, and Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to obtain failure scenarios based on component fragility models. The planning measures include advanced distribution grid operations with intentional islanding measures. The three main parameters used in this work for sensitivity analysis are risk preference, planning budget allocation, and component-level fragility. Case studies on a modified IEEE-123 bus system are conducted to examine these sensitivities. The findings of this analysis can provide valuable planning trade-offs to system operators for the optimal allocation of planning budgets and resources, thereby enhancing the power grid's resilience.