Resilience assessment for power system based on cascading failure graph under disturbances caused by extreme weather events

Extreme weather events such as hurricanes cause a great hazard to safe operations of power systems and even lead to power blackouts. To improve the resilience of a power system against such events, this research develops a quantitative assessment framework, which includes the identification of vulnerable lines and the development of a novel resilience assessment index (REAI). Firstly, a vulnerability index is proposed based on a cascading failure graph under persistent disturbances (CFGPD) constructed according to the failure chains of transmission lines. Subsequently, a resilience curve is used to described the damage of systems under events with different intensities, and then the REAI is applied to evaluate the curve and assess the resilience of power system under extreme events. Finally, the proposed framework is demonstrated on the test system of Texas power grid with 2,000 buses under Hurricane Harvey. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed framework is able to identify vulnerable lines and quantify the resilience of power system under extreme events. •Propose a cascading failure graph under persistent disturbances (CFGPD).•Develope a new vulnerability assessment index to identify vulnerable power lines.•Construct a novel resilience index to evaluate the resilience of a power system.