Optimal Distribution System Operation for Enhancing Resilience Against Wildfires

Natural disasters can cause significant damage to power grids. During summer, in countries with high temperatures, distribution systems passing through forested areas are prone to wildfires. This paper proposes a stochastic programming approach for increasing resiliency of a distribution system exposed to an approaching wildfire. Dynamic line rating of the overhead lines is considered in order to model the impact of the wildfire on conductor temperature and flowing current. The uncertainties associated with solar radiation, wind speed, and wind direction that affect the progression of the wildfire and the production of stochastic distributed generators are taken into account. A scenario reduction algorithm is applied to reduce the number of scenarios in a tractable size and subsequently the computational burden. The proposed model is transformed to a mixed-integer problem with quadratic constraints, which provides effective solution to the operation of a distribution system against an approaching wildfire. A modified IEEE 33-bus distribution system is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach.