Enhancing Island Energy Resilience: Optimized Networked Microgrids for Renewable Integration and Disaster Preparedness

Island communities that depend on mainland grid connections face substantial risks when natural disasters sever undersea or overhead cables, often resulting in long-lasting outages. This paper presents a comprehensive and novel two-part methodological framework for enhancing the resilience of these communities through networked microgrids that interconnect local renewable energy resources and battery storage. The framework integrates techno-economic capacity optimization using HOMER Pro with agent-based simulation in AnyLogic to determine cost-effective solar and storage capacities and to model dynamic real-time dispatch under varying conditions. Six island communities across three Indonesian provinces serve as illustrative case studies, tested under best-case and worst-case disruption scenarios that reflect seasonal extremes of solar availability. Simulation results reveal that isolated expansions of PV and battery storage can ensure critical residential loads, though certain islands with limited resources continue to experience shortfalls. By contrast, networked microgrids enable surplus power transfers between islands, significantly reducing unmet demand and alleviating the need for large-scale, individual storage. These findings demonstrate the significant potential of clustered microgrid designs to improve reliability, lower operational costs, and facilitate secure energy supply even during prolonged cable outages. The proposed framework offers a scalable roadmap for deploying resilient microgrid clusters in remote regions, with direct policy implications for system planners and local stakeholders seeking to leverage renewable energy in high-risk environments.