Impact of Bushfire Growth on the Optimal Power Flow of Distributed Generation Systems: Australia Case Study

In recent years, the threat of bushfires in Australia has evolved at an unprecedented rate. With this comes increasing concerns from authorities and operators surrounding the impact of distributed generation systems (DGS) across the country. Though studies have been conducted into the impact of bushfires in Australia and the optimal power flow (OPF) of DGS, there is a lack of research integrating these two concepts. Therefore, this work will aim to analyse the impact of bushfires on the OPF of the Greater Sydney Region's DGS. Following extensive research into both concepts, a bushfire model and an OPF model have been integrated. The integration model outputs power flow data as the Greater Sydney region's DGS is impacted by the fire. When a transmission line is cut off by fire, the unsupplied power demand must be generated and re-distributed from another bus. Inevitably, a penalty cost will be associated with this which leads to an increase in the total operational cost of the system. The results indicate that the potential penalty cost and associated operational cost increase when a transmission line is cut off by fire. An optimal strategy that aims at protecting vulnerable buses and minimizing these costs was defined. This strategy outlines the requirement to further protect Eraring, Sydney West and Sydney North as these buses are the most critical within the network due to their fuel type and role. This work defines a new strategy to help combat the impact of bushfires on one of Australia’s most essential DGS and to balance the trade-off between meeting consumer’s demand and minimising operational costs.