Optimizing Energy Donation for Service Restoration in a Power Distribution System

Natural hazards and technical malfunctions can cause widespread outages of power networks, adversely affecting communities and infrastructures. Microgrids with distributed generation and storage can help mitigate some of these devastating effects. However, not many communities and infrastructures have alternative power mechanisms. When needed, microgrids may help needy neighbors or critical communities, such as hospitals, by donating or trading surplus capacity. Energy donation in a smart grid is a viable and highly effective restoration option to mitigate the effects of a disaster. However, because of the limited capacity of microgrids, service restoration requires prioritizing critical load and optimality of operations for rendering relief to those in dire need. In this paper, we propose a new framework for enabling energy donation in a smart grid during a crisis when the main supply is cut off. The proposed technique allocates energy using weighted and optimized rationing approaches. It does so by catering to the load critically and users’ historical contribution during restoration. The proposed method is based on an algorithm which employs evolutionary optimization technique that maximizes social welfare and minimizes losses while satisfying the resource and network constraints. Extensive simulation results ascertain the effectiveness of the proposed approach across a myriad of system parameters.