A Robust Energy Storage System Siting Strategy Considering Physical Attacks to Transmission Lines

Physical attacks to power systems can cause significant loss to both utilities and customers when system is not properly planned and lacks adequate backup sources. Measures to alleviate such impacts should be considered by power system planners and operators. Integrating properly sited utility-scale energy storage systems (ESSs) provides an operation alternative for emergency support when these attacks occur. This paper presents an ESS siting model which helps minimize load curtailment under the worst-case scenario when transmission lines are physically attacked. A tri-level optimization model is formulated to jointly consider decisions from planner, operator and attacker. Actions of planner and operator under normal operations are modeled by the upper-level problem to determine the optimal locations for ESSs and their corresponding operation strategies. Middle and lower levels of the model simulate behaviors of attacker and system operator to maximize and minimize impacts of attack during restoration, respectively. Strong duality theorem and Column-and-Constraint Generation (C&CG) method are applied to solve this tri-level model. Numerical results on two testing systems are presented which demonstrate merits of the proposed model and value of ESS in mitigating impacts of physical attacks to power systems.