Resilience-based decision support system for installing standalone solar energy systems to improve disaster resilience of rural communities

Abstract

A potential solution to improve electricity access is to provide rural communities with a stable and resilient electric power supply from reliable and sustainable energy sources. Considering resilience in rural electrification planning can bring about longer techno-economic viability of rural power supply projects. For this purpose, this paper introduces ResQ-RDSS, a Resilience Quantification-based Regional Decision Support System. The novelty of ResQ-RDSS is integrating resilience quantification, optimization, and multi-hazard risk assessment into multi-criteria decision-making. The ResQ-RDSS aims to formulate a resilient electrification solution most suitable for each village to enhance the availability of electricity access for rural communities. ResQ-RDSS comprises four modules: Spatial Techno-Economic Assessment (STEA), Earthquake-induced Risk Assessment (ERA), Flood-induced Risk Assessment (FRA), and Decision Maker (DM). The STEA module considers six geospatial criteria to appraise the techno-economic suitability of villages for installing off-grid solar PV systems. This module classifies rural communities according to their suitability. The ERA and FRA modules quantify the resilience of the rural power transmission network to earthquake and flood scenarios, respectively, and classify the rural communities into two groups using multi-hazard disaster resilience metrics and decision-making parameters defined for the probabilistic resilience assessment. Finally, the DM module facilitates the selection of a resilient electrification strategy, installing off-grid PV systems or connecting to the power grid, for each rural community in the region of interest. The 158 rural settlements in Birjand County, Iran, exposed to earthquake and flood risks were selected for a case study to demonstrate the ResQ-RDSS's ability to help devise resilient regional electrification strategies. In this case study, the suitability of villages for installing solar PV systems and the resilience of rural power supply against natural hazards were evaluated and accordingly, possible resilient solutions for electrifying each village were compared and selected. The STEA, ERA, and FRA modules, respectively, classify 38, 53, and 55 villages (out of 158) for off-grid solar PV installation. Depending on the strategy selected by the decision-maker, ResQ-RDSS identifies between 13.3 % and 48.1 % of villages in the case study as suitable for deploying off-grid PV systems. The resilient electrification strategy can be selected by considering various factors, including budget constraints, stakeholders' interests, the local conditions of rural areas, policymakers' opinions, regional hazard risk assessment reports, and future development plans.