RePOWERD: Restoration of Power Outage from Wide-area Severe Weather Disruptions

Abstract

The purpose of the RePOWERD project is to develop a probabilistic and a simulation based power restoration forecasting model for tropical storms based on geographic utility service areas, impacts to energy infrastructures and transportation networks, time-varying customer outage number, crew information (i.e., crew size, crew staging requirements), and utility restoration plans. Energy infrastructure is a critical lifeline essential for the United States' national and economic security. Like other critical infrastructures, this infrastructure is aging and is at a high risk of damages from extreme weather events. Based on the number of reported outages in EAGLE-I during 2020 and 2021, it is evident that the current energy infrastructure is not equipped to handle extreme event impacts and will contribute to significant outages. From a resilience perspective, it is essential to forecast restoration time in the event of a severe weather induced power outage to assist the US Department of Energy, emergency managers, and first responders with resource planning. This project contributes to this crucial need. This report details the models, that were developed in this pilot study, to determine the rate of restoration and estimated time of restoration (ETR) during tropical storm events within counties and utility service areas based on damage to energy infrastructures and total number of customers experiencing outages.