Microgrid Design Toolkit Methodology for Incorporating Extreme Events, Hazards and Fragility Data into a Microgrid Model Representative of a Rural Community in Puerto Rico

Rolando J. Tremont-Brito1, Erick E. Aponte-Bezares1, Rachid Darbali-Zamora2 1University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, Mayagüez, PR, United States /2Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, United States

This paper presents a methodology to determine the feasibility of incorporating extreme events, their associated hazards, and the fragility of power system components into a the optimization tool Microgrid Design Toolkit (MDT). The methodology leverages the existing features from MDT’s islanded mode simulator to create a roadmap that helps users identify if a combination of extreme event, hazard, and components fragilities can be implemented. Extreme events such as tropical storms, hurricanes, and earthquakes were succesfully matched with their respective hazard, high wind speeds and peak ground acceleration (PGA) respectively, using this methodology. Similarly, fragility curves that represent the probability of failure of distribution lines/poles and distributed energy resource (DER) components such as diesel generators, solar photovoltaic (PV) generators, and energy storage were found feasible to incorporate using the developed methodology.