Integrated Intelligence for Electric Grid Resilience using Storm Surge
and Inland Flooding Models
Abstract
In the past four decades, Texas has experienced more than 80 hurricanes,
including Harvey, which alone caused damages costing over $130B. Given
this history and predictions of more frequent and/or more intense storms
in the future, it is of paramount importance to make prudent investment
decisions to enhance the resilience of the electric grid against such
extreme weather events. In this work, we explore two storm-surge models
and integration of these models with an inland flooding model to create
representative future flood scenarios for the state of Texas. We then
discuss how these flood scenarios can further be integrated with a
synthetic power system model that accurately quantifies the loss of
power in all contingencies for the same geographical region, using a
stochastic optimization framework. Our proposed two-stage scenario-based
stochastic optimization approach helps identify substations susceptible
to flooding due to storm surge and inland flooding, and recommends
optimal substation hardening solutions given a finite investment budget.
The insights from our work can be used to decide substation hardening
strategies to enhance the electric grid’s resilience against a multitude
of future storm scenarios.