Electrical Power Network Modeling Framework for Wildfire Risk and Resilience Analysis

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive modeling framework to analyze wildfire risks and resilience in electrical power networks, aiming to improve mitigation strategies and community impact understanding.

Contribution

It develops a wildfire-aware electrical system modeling framework that captures realistic fire propagation, hazard interactions, and community effects, addressing gaps in existing test models.

Findings

Framework enables realistic simulation of wildfire effects on electrical systems.

Identifies key dimensions and gaps in current wildfire-electrical system research.

Supports benchmarking of resilience and mitigation strategies.

Abstract

The increasing intensity and frequency of wildfires are causing significant economic and societal impacts on communities through direct effects on the built environment, particularly critical infrastructure. Electrical systems can both initiate wild-fires (grid-to-fire) and be damaged by wildfire exposure (fire-to-grid). Therefore, resilient electric systems can both limit ignitions and be hardened such that they are more robust to fire demands. Researchers have investigated wildfire mitigation strategies using traditional transmission and distribution electrical test-system models. However, these test cases may not accurately represent realistic electrical system configurations or fuel landscapes, nor capture community impacts, particularly the social and economic effects of mitigation strategies. A wildfire-aware modeling framework enables researchers to develop test cases that benchmark resilience and mitigation strategies while reducing reliance on overly simplistic assumptions about wildfire effects on electrical systems and communities. This study proposes a modeling framework for wildfire-electrical system research by analyzing recent literature and identifying key dimensions as well as gaps within these dimensions. In particular, the framework considers how fire in the wildland-urban interface propagates in space and time, how hazard-infrastructure interactions (e.g., wind and fire) cause system- and component-level damage, and how wildfire-related power outages affect communities.