Disaster Risk Analysis of a Power Grid Network

Cascading failures in power generation and transmission networks are an increasingly common and pressing issue given growing infrastructure interconnectivity. Meanwhile, climate-related hazards (e.g., floods) occur with mounting frequency and intensity, triggering initial failures that can cause a cascade through the network. This research introduces a method for using global data sets to conduct a flood risk and cascading failures analysis in countries where high-quality data does not exist. As the goal is to support policy-making on a national level, an impacts analysis is additionally proposed to provide a systematic way of comparing system performance against multiple objectives and under potential policy interventions. The method proposed in this study provides policy makers with an avenue to conduct such an analysis in countries where the requisite data may not exist or is unavailable, thus paving the way for a data-driven approach to decision-making. To demonstrate one example, we apply the proposed method to the case study country of Sierra Leone.