Coordinated recovery of interdependent power and water distribution systems

The interdependent nature of power and water distribution systems (WDSs), which magnifies the impact of power outages caused by extreme weather, offers an opportunity to coordinate recovery actions towards enhancing their resilience after a major outage event. The authors develop an approach for the coordinated recovery of interdependent power and WDSs, which enhances the resilience of both infrastructures from an operational standpoint based on the optimised dispatch of existing power and water resources after an extreme weather event. The proposed model allocates the available resources in both power and WDSs—including solar generation, battery energy storage systems, water stored in tanks, and small pumped‐storage hydropower—to minimise the energy and water demand curtailment. The proposed model is tested on the interconnection of IEEE 33‐bus test power distribution system with a 16‐node test WDS. Results for the test system show that, by coordinating the power and water operation during the recovery, the energy curtailment cost reduces by 8.9%, while the water curtailment cost is reduced by 33.5% from adequately allocating energy resources without negatively affecting the demand requirements during the restoration process, when compared to the uncoordinated approach where each infrastructure is operated independently.