Assessing the Impacts of Power Outage on Community Overheating Risk during Extreme Heatwaves

Abstract

Communities worldwide are experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves, where the increased use of energy-intensive cooling systems is putting additional pressure on the power system. While power utility companies reduce this overload by applying controlled outages, this disruption inequitably impacts communities dependent on the electricity supply to unbearable indoor temperatures during extreme weather. To assess the relationship between power outage and overheating risk, this paper develops a framework to evaluate the community overheating risk when exposed to rotating outages during heat waves. The framework is based on a set of metrics that initially evaluates the overheating risk at a household level, which is aggregated to the power distribution system nodes and then scored to quantify the overall feeder overheating inequity based on a thermal simulation of the indoor temperature when a power outage occurs during a heat wave. A sensitivity analysis is also conducted to assess the impact of distributed energy resources on the community vulnerability and overheating risk inequity. The proposed framework is tested on the IEEE 33-node test system, where it succeeds in identifying highly vulnerable areas where planning and operational decisions may enhance community resilience to heat waves.