Influence of extreme weather and climate change on the resilience of power systems: Impacts and possible mitigation strategies

TLDR: A comprehensive modelling research framework is outlined, which can help understand and model the impact of extreme weather on power systems and how this can be prevented or mitigated in the future.

About: This article is published in Electric Power Systems Research.The article was published on 2015-10-01 and is currently open access. It has received 491 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Extreme weather & Weather and climate.

Figures

Figure 1: Markov Weather Models

Figure 5: Human-related delay during weather emergencies

Figure 2: Dividing an electrical network in weather regions

Table 2: Long-term Resilience Measures

Figure 6: Generic research framework for assessing the impact of weather on power systems resilience In addition to the impact of weather on components’ resilience, the effect on components’ operation should be included in the component model as it affects the operation of the entire power infrastructure. For example, when modeling the wind turbines, the cut-in and cut-off wind speeds should be considered. This is particularly critical when modeling extreme wind speed events, typically higher than 25m/s.

Table 1: Short-term Resilience Measures Before, During and After the Weather Event

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "Influence of extreme weather and climate change on the resilience of power systems: impact and possible mitigation strategies" ?

In this outlook, this paper first discusses the influence of weather and climate change on the reliability and operation of power system components. Since modeling the impact of weather is a difficult task because of its stochastic and unpredicted nature, a review of existing methodologies is provided in order to get an understanding of the key modeling approaches, challenges and requirements for assessing the effect of extreme weather on the frequency and duration of power system blackouts. 

Q2. What is the role of the system operators in preserving system resilience?

system operators’ situation awareness, decision-making and response play a key role in preserving system resilience during weather events. 

Q3. What can be used for reducing the effect of severe weather?

Smart grid solutions can also be applied for providing flexibility and advanced monitoring, protection and control strategies to mitigate the effect of severe weather. 

Q4. What is the common method used for generating the number and time of occurrence of high?

A non-homogenous Poisson process (NHPP) is used in [49] and [50] for generating the number and time of occurrence of high wind and lightning events, which are, however, considered standstill and not traversing. 

Q5. What can be done to improve the speed and accuracy of these protection and control schemes?

Wide area measurement systems (WAMS) using Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) can improve the speed and accuracy of these protection and control schemes [75, 76]. 

Q6. What can be the impact of extreme weather on the transmission and distribution lines?

High winds during storms and hurricanes can lead to faults and damage to overhead transmission anddistribution lines, either by debris being blown against the lines or even a tower collapse in extremely high winds. 

Q7. What is the effect of an increase in the temperature on the efficiency of the substation earthing?

In addition, an increase in the temperature will affect the efficiency of the substation earthing, as the earthing impedance changes in response to the ground’s moisture and temperature [18]. 

Q8. What can be done to improve the visualization and information systems?

The latest technological breakthroughs, including PMUs, can also help improve the visualization and information systems for better supporting the system operators. 

Q9. What can be done to improve the resilience of a transmission system?

Resilience enhancement measures can then be applied for mitigating the impact of these events, such as building the transmission towers with more robust materials. 

Q10. What are the main techniques used in power systems reliability assessment?

The techniques used in power systems reliability assessment can be generally divided into analytical and Monte Carlo simulations. 

Q11. Why are the simulation techniques considered more suitable than the analytical techniques for weather-related power systems?

because of the stochastic and space- and time-dependent nature of the weather events and the size and complexity of real power systems, the simulation techniques are considered more suitable than the analytical techniques for weather-related power system resilience studies. 

Q12. What is the importance of defining the weather-affected failure rate of the components?

Defining the weather-affected failure rate of the components with high accuracy is vitally important in modeling the impact of weather on the entire power infrastructure. 

Q13. What is the main method used for evaluating the impact of weather on power systems reliability?

The majority of the methods in the literature for evaluating the weather-associated impact on power systems reliability use analytical techniques, with Markov approach being the dominant analytical technique. 

Q14. What is the role of the human response in preserving system resilience?

in addition to the delay in the restoration time due to the weather conditions, the human response can also result in the delayed restoration of the damaged components and of the system to a resilient state. 

Q15. What is the impact of weather on the reliability of the transmission and distribution systems?

The environment in which the transmission and distribution facilities reside has a significant impact on their reliability, and in particular on their failure rate. 

Q16. What is the effect of weather on the reliability of power systems?

The weather conditions that power system components experience affect significantly their reliability, i.e. failure and restoration rates, and operation. 

Q17. What is the importance of a weather restoration procedure?

this restoration procedure and the recovery time following a weather event depends on several factors, such as the magnitude and location of the event, the availability of spare parts and repair crews and the accessibility to the affected areas.