Simultaneous Hardening Planning of Lines and Substations for Resilience Enhancement of Electric Power Distribution System against Dust Storms

Resilience characteristics in power systems refer to the system's ability to withstand against severe disturbances with a low probability of occurrence. As extreme dust storms in the south and southwest in recent years have caused heavy damage to the IRAN's electricity industry, in this paper, a bi-level planning model is proposed to simultaneous hardening of distribution lines and substations against this phenomenon. In the first and second levels of the proposed model, the investment costs of distribution system hardening and total expected operating costs are minimized subject to financial and operational constraints, respectively. The planning results in different case studies have shown that the simultaneous hardening planning of substations and distribution lines can, in addition to reducing operating costs in the emergency conditions, play a significant role in reducing investment costs. The proposed model is implemented on a large-scale power distribution system in Khuzestan province, and the simulation results confirm the efficiency of the proposed scheme at different budget levels.