Evaluating infrastructure resilience to extreme weather – the case of the Dutch electricity transmission network

Abstract

This paper reports the development and results of a model exploring the resilience of the Dutch electricity transmission infrastructure to extreme weather events. Climate change is anticipated to result in an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events over the coming decades. Situated in a low-lying coastal delta, the Netherlands may be particularly exposed to certain types of extreme weather(-induced) events. The degree to which the country’s electricity network may prove resilient in the face of these future events is an open question. The model focuses on two types of extreme events – floods and heat waves – and assesses two types of adaptation measures – substation flood protections and demand-side management. The model employs a network-based approach in assessing infrastructure resilience – explicitly representing the structure and properties of the Dutch transmission infrastructure – and extends previous work by accounting for key power system characteristics such as capacity constraints and cascading failures. From a practice perspective, the results offer a first indication of the vulnerability of the Dutch electricity transmission infrastructure in the context of climate change. These results suggest that the network displays some vulnerability to both floods and heat waves. Both types of adaptation measures tested are found to enhance resilience, though substation flood protection shows greater benefits. Whilst the model was specifically developed for the study of electricity networks, we anticipate that this method may also be applicable to other types of transport infrastructures.

Management of extreme weather impacts on electricity grids: an international review

“…Understanding the future probability of adverse events is key-the Dutch electricity transmission infrastructure, for example, is particularly prone through its situation in a low-lying delta, and is vulnerable to floods and heat waves, both likely to increase with climate change. However, as these events are well-known to have the potential to strongly impact the Netherlands in multiple ways, their electricity system is well-prepared and is one of the most reliable in Europe (Bollinger and Dijkema 2016).…”

A conceptual model for the estimation of flood damage to power grids

“…Indirect damage is here defined as the loss of network functionality due to the physical damage and functional failure of its components. Since complex networks, and particularly power grids, are made up of strongly interconnected components, the failure of a single component may trigger large cascade failures, causing even the loss of functionality of the entire transmission (Bollinger and Dijkema, 2016;Espinoza et al, 2016;Murdock et al, 2018) and distribution (Vasenev et al, 2016;Bragatto et al, 2019;Leandro et al, 2021) network (Table 2). Typically, cascading failures are responsible for extended and long-term power outages.…”

“…The implementation of the four categories of models to flood-related problems is, however, limited and unbalanced. For instance, Bollinger and Dijkema (2016) evaluated transmission network performance against floods adopting a flow method. In particular, the authors derived water depth values from publicly available flood risk data (for a dike breach scenario) and determined binary failure states to substations with an empirical functionality threshold, based on the height of flood protection system.…”

“…First, there is an absence of studies that evaluate network performance from a topological perspective or by phenomenological methods. Studies mainly applied simulation-based (Bollinger and Dijkema 2016;Espinoza et al, 2016) or even logical approaches (Vasenev et al, 2016), while some of them went a step further, by estimating other crucial features, such as the response and restoration process (Espinoza et al, 2016). This, however, hamper the analysis of indirect damage given that the sensitive data required for the complex modelling of power flow are hard to obtain and the computational cost is extremely high.…”

“…They describe the relationship between hazard, exposure, and vulnerability parameters and the damage itself. Despite flood damage assessment is a quite recent topic in flood risk management, there is a wide variety of models now available in the literature (Pregnolato et al, 2015;Gerl et al, 2016;Bombelli et al, 2021).…”