Increasing the resilience of distribution systems against hurricane by optimal switch placement

Due to increasing the intensity and frequency of natural disasters in recent years, power system decision makers are seeking cost efficient methods to improve the resilience of power grids against low probability, high impact natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. In this paper, a new algorithm is presented for switch placement problem with the main goal of improving the resilience of distribution grids. To reach this goal, at first, a model is presented to simulate the effects of hurricane on availability of system components. Then, this model is involved in optimization model of switch placement problem. A new criterion is introduced as objective function of switch placement problem which represents resilience of distribution grid. The obtained problem is modeled as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) optimization problem. In order to validate the proposed approach, it is implemented on two different distribution test systems. The numerical results validate the effectiveness of our proposed approach and reveal that switches can play a key role in providing a resilient solution to major faults caused by hurricanes in distribution systems.