Balancing line hardening, distributed generation and de-energization for wildfire risk mitigation with microgrid formation
Significant efforts have been put into preventing and mitigating the impacts of wildfires on power grids. Specifically, Pacific Gas & Electricity, the utility in California, has been using a Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) program to de-energize power in specific areas on high-wind days....
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-09-01
|
| Series: | International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142061525003904 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Significant efforts have been put into preventing and mitigating the impacts of wildfires on power grids. Specifically, Pacific Gas & Electricity, the utility in California, has been using a Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) program to de-energize power in specific areas on high-wind days. However, the societal and economic impacts of such energy interruptions due to PSPS are significant. This paper explores the roles of distributed generation, line hardening, and microgrid formation with system reconfiguration in supporting critical loads during the PSPS. We propose a robust mixed-integer programming model to co-optimize the investment cost, system resilience, and wildfire risk. The objective is to balance the desire to enhance system resilience while minimizing the system upgrade cost against wildfires. An adopted column-and-constraint generation algorithm is developed to solve the model and obtain the optimal decisions. Case studies based on the IEEE 33-node distribution system demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly reduce fire risk and improve load survivability with minimal investment cost. For example, the optimal strategy — under a resilience index of 0.8 and a fire risk level of 0.1 — enables more than 99% of wildfire scenarios to energize at least 80% of the total loads while the fire risk reduced 90%, with total investment cost kept under $180,000. The results also reveal important trade-offs between resilience, risk, and cost, and highlight the value of reconfiguration and PSPS as cost-effective strategies for microgrid formation. These findings offer practical insights for utilities and policymakers in wildfire-prone regions and provide a decision-support tool for balancing system upgrades with risk mitigation goals. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0142-0615 |