Power distribution system resilience enhancement planning against extreme dust storms via pre- and post-event actions considering uncertainties

Extreme dust storms (EDSs) are rare natural disasters, occurring with a higher rate of incidence and severity in recent years in coastal areas with humid climate. EDSs can hamper the operation of power distribution systems (PDSs) and other related urban infrastructures, and damage PDS insulation equipment. In this paper, a bi-level stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed for PDS resilience enhancement against EDSs. In the proposed model, the investment cost and total expected operating costs under the EDS conditions are minimized while considering uncertainties and PDS financial and operational constraints. The proposed actions for PDS resilience enhancement include pre-and post-EDS actions. Pre-EDS actions include simultaneous hard-ening of lines and substations, optimal placement of sectionalizing switches, and installation of emergency generators (EGs) in critical points. Post-EDS actions include damaged lines and substations repair, optimal network reconfiguration, power dispatch of EGs and optimal load shedding. The planning results at different budget levels show that coordinating pre-and post-event actions can reduce investment costs besides reducing operational costs. Implementation of the proposed model on the IEEE 33-bus test system and a large-scale PDS in Khuzestan province, a coastal province in southwestern Iran, confirms the efficiency of the proposed method for PDS resilience enhancement planning.