Model for Post-Disaster Restoration of Power Systems Considering Helicopter Scheduling and Its Cost–Benefit Analysis

In recent years, helicopters have shown stronger advantages than ground transportation in post-disaster emergency response due to their strengths of rapid response and cross-domain maneuverability. Especially against the backdrop of the increasing frequency of extreme weather and natural disasters, the issues of power supply guarantee and power grid security caused by extreme events have become increasingly severe. Making full use of helicopter resources can better meet the needs of repairing inaccessible faulty facilities in power systems after disasters and quickly restoring power supply. This paper studies the behavioral mechanism and application basis of helicopters participating in the post-disaster emergency response of power systems. It obtains route planning that reflects the maneuvering characteristics of helicopters by constructing a spatial route-planning model, and proposes a post-disaster restoration method for power systems with the joint action of helicopters and energy storage to verify its feasibility and superiority. Finally, the restoration model is supplemented from the perspectives of a cost consumption and benefit analysis of helicopter application, and verified in the improved IEEE 30-bus system. The results show that helicopters greatly reduce the loss of emergency load curtailment after disasters and have good economic benefits in the applied scenarios. The proposed analysis method can help balance the improvement in resilience and economic feasibility in helicopter deployment.