A framework to investigate the effectiveness of interconnection of power distribution systems subjected to hurricanes

Billions of dollars lost to natural disasters such as hurricanes are associated with infrastructure damage and power interruptions. Most utilities have radially operated systems and the existing supporting infrastructure may not provide possibilities to restore power from other substations that are not within the disaster areas. This would lower reliability during hazards especially for customers that are downstream of affected parts of the system. A potential strategy to remedy such situations entails extending feeders from different substations in the vicinity and connecting them with affected feeder lines from other substations. This paper presents a framework to study the effectiveness of constructing additional lines with switching devices to connect feeders from different substations to improve system performance. The framework incorporates a hurricane hazard model, a topologically based system performance measure, and cost analysis. A notional power distribution system of parts of Florida i...