Enhancing Distribution System Resilience Against Extreme Events: A Review

Enhancing distribution system resilience is essential to ensure customer survivability during extreme events. System hardening and smart operational techniques can be used to enhance distribution system resilience. System hardening measures are the commonly used to protect the network when faced with severe disruptions. However, hardening the entire distribution system infrastructure can be costly. Smart operational techniques are deemed to be less expensive and one of the possible approaches is to use microgrids (MGs) to ensure continuous power supply to critical loads in case of extreme events. Key attributes of a microgrid (MG) such as, operational flexibility, customer interaction and the ability of a MG to island itself from the grid when a grid fault is detected and continue operating in island mode make it a trusted solution in enhancing distribution system resilience against extreme events. This paper gives a review on the concept of power system resilience at distribution level. It focuses on the review of the most recent studies in using MGs to enhance distribution system resilience.