Quantifying power system resiliency improvement using network reconfiguration

Electricity grid complexity with its diverse critical infrastructures has been continuously evolved into a more complicated network that is vulnerable to unpredictable hazards of internal and external origins. Resiliency assessment of the large-scale smart electricity grids has recently attracted many attentions in electric industry for more efficient daily operations in face of emergencies. This paper aims to quantify the power system resiliency in dealing with grid severe vulnerabilities and extreme emergencies. The suggested approach for resiliency improvement is to harness the existing system infrastructure, with minimum additional cost, through transmission network reconfiguration. The applied concept of reconfiguration is predictively planned and used as a temporary operation mechanism for the main sake of electricity outage recovery. The system resiliency features, e.g., flexibility, capacity recovery and the imposed cost indices, are quantified for each optimal reconfiguration option, helping the system operators evaluate the recovery options and decide on the final plan for implementation considering its impacts on system resiliency requirements. The suggested approach is tested on the IEEE 118-Bus test system under a critical contingency and the results reveal its applicability and efficiency.