Wildfire Risk Mitigation: A Paradigm Shift in Power Systems Planning and Operation

Muhs, John W.; Parvania, Masood; Shahidehpour, Mohammad

doi:10.1109/oajpe.2020.3030023

Cited by 50 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…A review of the electricity grid vulnerabilities amid natural disasters, including wildfires, is presented in [25]. There are some recent attempts to facilitate operational planning of the electricity grid, including the risk of a wildfire [26]. The short-term operation of the system during wildfire given the thermal effects of wildfires on the dynamic rating of power lines is given in [27].…”

Section: B Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the Risk of Wildfire Ignition by Power Lines under Extreme Weather Conditions

Bayani¹,

Waseem²,

Manshadi³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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This paper presents a surrogate model to quantify the risk of wildfire ignition by individual power lines under extreme weather conditions. Wind speed and wind gust can lead to conductor clashing, which is a cause of igniting disastrous wildfires. The 3D non-linear vibration equations of power lines are employed to generate a dataset that considers physical, structural, and meteorological parameters, including the span of the power line, conductor diameter, wind speed, wind gust, phase clearance, and wind direction. A set of machine learning models is assembled based on these features to generate a score representing the risk of conductor clashing for each power line within a network, quantifying the risk of wildfire ignition. The rendered score represents the chance of the conductor clashing in place of simulating a Runge-Kutta method. A discussion on the impact of various meteorological parameters on power lines under the energization risk is presented. Besides, it is shown how the presented risk measure can be utilized to weigh in the fire safety and service continuity trade-off.

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Section: B Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the Risk of Wildfire Ignition by Power Lines under Extreme Weather Conditions

Bayani¹,

Waseem²,

Manshadi³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…There is a growing body of literature on the importance of proper wildfire mitigation planning ( [24], [13], [1] and [36]). Likewise, and in the same direction, a study focuses on the need for all organizations with competencies in this area to work in the same direction ([15]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Wildfires and their Socio-economic Factors in Sardinia

Serra¹,

Detotto

Vannini

2021

Preprint

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In the last decades, wildfire hazards have increased to dangerous levels, becoming the focus of debate among policymakers both at the local and national levels. This paper proposes a Spatio-temporal approach to study the determinants of fire size distributions taking Sardinia as a case study in the time span 1998-2009. Special attention is devoted to socioeconomic factors of local communities where wildfires occurred. The main finding of this study is that the proportion of public lands in a given municipality tends to mitigate the extent of the burned area. In addition, communities with a higher percentage of people employed in the primary sector are less likely to experience large burned extents.

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“…For instance, less than 10% of reported wildfire ignitions in California are due to power lines, but these account for about half of the most destructive fires [4], including the 2018 Camp Fire that is classified as the "most destructive fire in California history" with over 100,000 burnt acres, 85 deaths, and over ten billion dollars in damage [5], [6]. Accordingly, engineers must operate and design power systems in a manner that mitigates the risk of wildfire ignitions [5], [7], [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing Transmission Infrastructure Investments to Support Line De-energization for Mitigating Wildfire Ignition Risk

Kody¹,

Piansky²,

Molzahn³

2022

Preprint

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Wildfires pose a growing risk to public safety in regions like the western United States, and, historically, electric power systems have ignited some of the most destructive wildfires. To reduce wildfire ignition risks, power system operators preemptively de-energize high-risk power lines during extreme wildfire conditions as part of "Public Safety Power Shutoff" (PSPS) events. While capable of substantially reducing acute wildfire risks, PSPS events can also result in significant amounts of load shedding as the partially de-energized system may not be able to supply all customer demands. In this work, we investigate the extent to which infrastructure investments can support system operations during PSPS events by enabling reduced load shedding and wildfire ignition risk. We consider the installation of grid-scale batteries, solar PV, and line hardening or maintenance measures (e.g., undergrounding or increased vegetation management). Optimally selecting the locations, types, and sizes of these infrastructure investments requires considering the line de-energizations associated with PSPS events. Accordingly, this paper proposes a multi-period optimization formulation that locates and sizes infrastructure investments while simultaneously choosing line de-energizations to minimize wildfire ignition risk and load shedding. The proposed formulation is evaluated using two geolocated test cases along with realistic infrastructure investment parameters and actual wildfire risk data from the US Geological Survey. We evaluate the performance of investment choices by simulating de-energization decisions for the entire 2021 wildfire season with optimized infrastructure placements. With investment decisions varying significantly for different test cases, budgets, and operator priorities, the numerical results demonstrate the proposed formulation's value in tailoring investment choices to different settings.

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Wildfire Risk Mitigation: A Paradigm Shift in Power Systems Planning and Operation

Cited by 50 publications

References 45 publications

Quantifying the Risk of Wildfire Ignition by Power Lines under Extreme Weather Conditions

Quantifying the Risk of Wildfire Ignition by Power Lines under Extreme Weather Conditions

Analyzing Wildfires and their Socio-economic Factors in Sardinia

Optimizing Transmission Infrastructure Investments to Support Line De-energization for Mitigating Wildfire Ignition Risk

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