Resilience of the electric distribution systems: concepts, classification, assessment, challenges, and research needs

Abstract

Distribution system resilience is an emerging topic of interest given an increasing number of extreme events and adverse impacts on the power grid (e.g. Hurricane Maria and Ukraine cyber-attack). The concept of resilience poses serious challenges to the power system research community given varied definitions and multivariate factors affecting resilience. The ability of nature or malicious actors to disrupt critical services is a real threat to the life of our citizens, national assets and the security of a nation. Many examples of such events have been documented over the years. Promising research in this area has been in progress focused on the quantification and in enabling resilience of the distribution system. The objective of this study is to provide a detailed overview of distribution system resilience, the classification, assessment, metrics for measuring resilience, possible methods for enabling resilience, and the associated challenges. A new multi-dimensional and multi-temporal resilience assessment framework is introduced along with a research roadmap outlining the future of resilience to help the reader conceptualise the theories and research gaps in the area of distribution system cyber-physical resilience.

Keywords

• critical infrastructures
• security of data
• risk management
• power grids
• power distribution
• power engineering computing
• electric distribution systems
• power system research community
• multitemporal resilience assessment framework
• distribution system cyber-physical resilience
• power grid
• ukraine cyber-attack
• hurricane maria cyber-attack
• multidimensional resilience assessment framework