An integrated multi-criteria approach on vulnerability analysis in the context of load reduction

Load reduction is an emergency measure to stabilize an electrical grid by decoupling some supply areas to balance the demand and supply of electricity in power grids. In the decoupled areas, power outages may cause important consequences, which may propagate further via the network of interdependent infrastructures. Therefore, support is needed to choose the regions to be decoupled. This paper describes an approach to analyze the risk triggered by load reduction that can be used for disaster management and load reduction scheme optimization. The core of our work is the vulnerability assessment that takes into account the consequences of load reduction on economy and society. The approach facilitates participatory decision support by making the vulnerability of regions especially in urban transparent.