Community-Aware Reliability Metrics for Strategic Battery Storage Placement in Distribution Systems

Traditional power system reliability metrics, such as energy not supplied (ENS), are predominantly utility-centric, focusing on system-wide performance while overlooking the disproportionate impacts of power outages on low-income households. Although the classical ENS metric provides significant insight for grid reliability analysis, it does not address socioeconomic disparities. This paper introduces a community-aware reliability metric that incorporates community hardships into the reliability assessment of power distribution systems. Through a preliminary survey study, three socioeconomic factors, including income, education, and homeownership, are identified to measure community hardships caused by power failures. These factors are combined to create a hardship index for each community zone, which is then integrated with ENS to develop a combined community-utility reliability index. As proof of concept, this reliability index has been applied to the placement of battery storage to establish a community-aware decision-making framework. This framework considers both utility and community needs in storage placement. Simulation results on a 13-bus power distribution system demonstrate that community-aware placement reduces hardship-weighted ENS in low-income households by 43.9 %, significantly addressing socioeconomic inequities while maintaining acceptable system-wide reliability that meets both technical and social objectives.