Optimal Network Reconfiguration for Mitigating the Impact of Adverse Weather Events on Distribution Networks

Adverse weather events can have disastrous effects on power system infrastructure, hampering the reliable and secure operation of substations and underground cables in case of flooding and heat waves, overhead lines, towers and pole-mount transformers in case of high-speed wind gusts. This paper investigates the impact of adverse weather events on the primary distribution networks reliability, in terms of components failure and repair rates. Since the power supply quality indices commonly used for a reliability assessment depend on these parameters, more suitable topological assets can be found considering the influence of adverse weather conditions. The effects of meteorological events are observed on the reconfigured topologies obtained from an Optimal Network Reconfiguration algorithm based on mixed-integer linear programming applied to a realistic sized distribution network.