Coordinating Electricity and Transportation Networks: Enhancing power grid resilience strategies against ice storms

Ice storms have seriously threatened power network security over the last decades. In 1998, an ice storm that struck North America damaged more than 1,000 transmission towers. In 2008, a severe ice storm struck South China, destroying thousands of transmission lines and towers, resulting in more than US$50 billion in economic loss. During this storm, the Chenzhou power network in the Hunan province suffered an outage, and the city experienced a weeklong power blackout. Figures 1 and 2 depict samples of damaged transmission lines and towers brought down by unbalanced tensions caused by ice-covered lines. Table 1 summarizes the corresponding damages to the transmission infrastructure, showing that more than 800 towers and 400 lines (i.e., in excess of 220 kV) were impaired. Moreover, the extent of ice storm damage in the distribution network included more than 60,000 towers and 47,000 lines.