[email protected] Risk Analysis for Assessment of Vegetation Impact on Outages in Electric Power Systems

Combination of severe weather conditions and vegetation impacts is the most dominant cause of outages in electric power systems. Instance of high speed wind and heavy precipitation may cause trees to come in contact with power lines due to the following reasons: a) branches break off and fly into lines; b) complete trees topple when moved by wind, or c) tree branches grow into the lines. The main mitigation management scheme today is trimming the trees around the power lines. The proposed research shows that the process of tree trimming can be substantially improved by using weather and tree growth data to automatically assess the risk. We introduce the predictive means for determining optimal tree trimming schedule that would minimize the risk of vegetation-related outages in both transmission and distribution systems based on analysis of extensive sets of historical and realtime data. By analyzing impact of vegetation characteristics and weather impacts on power system outages, it is possible to predict where and when vegetation may become a risk. Thus, this study is of great importance for automated power system monitoring and outage management. Automated analysis of data provides means for developing dynamic scheduler that takes into account current state of the network and surrounding vegetation, as well as changing weather conditions and its predicted impact on vegetation. The developed system is able to adapt to constantly changing weather and vegetation conditions. The risk analysis provides information about areas of network with highest risk to vegetation-related outages that are targeted as the most important areas to perform the tree trimming. The proposed method then utilizes the real-time risk mapping system in order to assist in developing an optimal tree trimming schedule.