Performance assessment of topologically diverse power systems subjected to hurricane events

Large tropical cyclones cause severe damage to major cities along the United States Gulf Coast annually. A diverse collection of engineering and statistical models are currently used to estimate the geographical distribution of power outage probabilities stemming from these hurricanes to aid in storm preparedness and recovery efforts. Graph theoretic studies of power networks have separately attempted to link abstract network topology to transmission and distribution system reliability. However, few works have employed both techniques to unravel the intimate connection between network damage arising from storms, topology, and system reliability. This investigation presents a new methodology combining hurricane damage predictions and topological assessment to characterize the impact of hurricanes upon power system reliability. Component fragility models are applied to predict failure probability for individual transmission and distribution power network elements simultaneously. The damage model is calibrated using power network component failure data for Harris County, TX, USA caused by Hurricane Ike in September of 2008, resulting in a mean outage prediction error of 15.59% and low standard deviation. Simulated hurricane events are then applied to measure the hurricane reliability of three topologically distinct transmission networks. The rate of system performance decline is shown to depend on their topological structure. Reliability is found to correlate directly with topological features, such as network meshedness, centrality, and clustering, and the compact irregular ring mesh topology is identified as particularly favorable, which can influence regional lifeline policy for retrofit and hardening activities to withstand hurricane events.