Distribution network outage pre-warning analytics under extreme weather conditions

Extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes, heavy thunderstorms, and severe snow/ice storms could have serious impact to the secure operations of electrical distribution network especially in the city/metropolitan areas and may lead to large scale of power outage to the customers. This paper presents a distribution network outage pre-warning modeling and analytic method under the extreme weather conditions. First, the correlation model between the electrical equipment failure and its loading pressure is established based on the improved loading pressure model and the weather forecasting information; Second, the device failure probability models for overhead lines and transformers are built based on the calculation of the device failure probability; third, the distribution network security evaluation model is developed for the current network operation condition with the optimal objective of minimal load shedding; last, individual customer´s outage probability are calculated and the risk evaluation are provided. The simulation results using the standard IEEE system shows that the proposed models and analytic method could effectively improve utility´s capability of distribution network outage pre-warning and preparation. The proposed methodology could also be applied to the transmission network outage management..