MDP based Decision Support for Earthquake Damaged Distribution System Restoration

Abstract: As the society becomes more dependent on the presence of electricity, the resilience of the power systems gains more importance. This paper develops a decision support method for distribution system operators to restore electricity after an earthquake to the maximum number of customers in the minimum expected duration. The proposed method employs Markov Decision Process (MDP) to determine the optimal restoration scheme. In order to determine the probability of the field component damage due to the earthquake, the Probability of Failure ($P_f$) of structures are calculated using the Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) values recorded by observatories and earthquake research centers during the earthquake.