Assessment and possible solution to increase resilience: heat waves in Terni distribution grid

The paper presents a procedure able to assess the resilience of an electrical network, as well as to identify remedial actions that allow the system operator to reduce the impact of a threat occurring in the network. Network topology, number of connected users and return time of the threat are inputs of the procedure. The network graph is visited using the Dulmage-Mendelsohn decomposition algorithm; relevant resilience indices are then calculated by evaluating impact and probability of interruptions. The procedure has been applied to the medium voltage distribution network of Terni, in the Center of Italy, to evaluate its resilience against heat waves; in this respect, a preliminary assessment of the resilience of each asset is presented, identifying the most vulnerable ones. Numerical results show that the studied network is already resilient to the specific threat; however, remedial actions identified by the procedure can increase resilience regardless of the type of threat.