Quantifying benefits of grid reinforcement measures to power system resilience against wet snow events

Abstract

A major concern for Transmission System Operators (TSOs) is to effectively manage power systems during extreme weather events. This need calls for new methods and tools to support operational planning by forecasting critical conditions in the grid, and to quantify the benefits of the measures deployed to improve system performance under these events. For this reasons, the concept of resilience is particularly useful to build a proper assessment framework. This paper presents an in-depth resilience assessment methodology supporting the evaluation of the system response under different assumptions on threat intensity and component vulnerability, including the modeling of countermeasures aimed to improve system resilience. In particular the paper investigates the models for anti-torsional devices and ice-phobic coatings, i.e. two grid hardening measures against wet snow events. The case studies applied to a model of a realistic EHV/HV transmission system demonstrate the potentialities of the tool, which can be useful for a future quantitative techno-economic assessment of the portfolio of resilience boosting measures.