Abstract:
Overhead electrical power
distribution systems (PDS) are very susceptible
to extreme wind events such as hurricanes and
typhoons. Power outages can cause catastrophic
consequences, including economic loss, loss of
other critical services, and disruption of daily
life. Therefore, it is very important to model the
resilience of PDS against extreme winds to
support disaster planning. Although falling
trees are one of the main causes of PDS failures,
the tree-failure risk was rarely considered in the
performance assessment of PDS in the
literature. In this study, a probabilistic
simulation framework is proposed to model the
resilience of PDS against extreme winds, in
which the tree-failure risk can be realistically
considered. The framework is demonstrated
with a power distribution network in
Oklahoma. Results show that the system
resilience can reduce by 24% if tree failures are
considered. In addition, crown thinning can
effectively enhance the system resilience but will
become less effective when the wind speed is
very low or high.
