Planning and Operational Practices of Distribution Utilities in the Extreme Weather Events

Nation's power grid is constantly facing extreme weather-related outages including the most recent hurricane Ian (2022) in Florida and Texas (2021) blackout. Power grids in coastal regions are more vulnerable to hurricane-related events. For example, hurricanes Ian, Harvey, Irma, and Maria left more than 7.5 million residents in various coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico without electricity. Utilities in those areas are constantly adopting new technologies and strategies at different stage of planning and operations to lower the impact of extreme weather on power outage. In this context, this panel proposes to bring together experts from utilities and R&D community to disseminate experience learned by the utilities in managing distribution grids during the past extreme weather events, and to share the state-of-the-art methods and tools valuable for the utilities in managing the power distribution networks during those extreme events. Presentations in this panel session: - Sustainability through Artificial Intelligence Based Microgrid (23PESGM4048) - Tallahasseeís Grid Modernization Efforts (23PESGM4088)