ReDDDoT Phase 2: Empowering Resilience: Innovations in Rural Electric Network Disaster Preparedness and Response

Recent climate patterns have caused more frequent and more extreme weather events, which incur more damage to electric power utilities than ever before. These changes have led to prolonged outages with severe social and economic consequences, especially for rural utilities and communities. This project will introduce a new digital infrastructure to help utilities address the challenges associated with maintaining the operation and service of electric power utilities, especially in the face of natural hazards.

The high-fidelity simulation platforms and infrastructure developed through this project will enable rural utilities to take informed preventive and corrective actions that assess the power system performance and possible risks during natural hazards. Specifically, by using the principles of responsible design, development, and deployment, the rural utilities and their customers are engaged through direct collaborations to ensure benefit to the communities they serve.

This project’s primary objective is to introduce a transformative platform based on responsible design, development, and deployment strategies to engage rural utilities and their customers in enhancing the resilience of power utilities under climate change and extreme weather events. For this purpose, the scope of activities includes three interrelated thrusts: (1) systematic and foundational interactions with various stakeholders, including public utilities and the communities they serve, to understand technical and societal impacts associated with increased damage to electric power utilities; 2) development of a platform that links physical assets, power network models, weather data, geographic features, climate projections, outage information, and customer preferences; and 3) collection and integration of relevant data from multiple sources for effective decision-making processes, taking into account current and future climate patterns.

The project team will directly work with a wide spectrum of stakeholders through workshops, focus group meetings, and surveys. In addition, the educational modules and dissemination activities will assist in enhancing public knowledge and preparing a diverse group of students for future careers that involve responsible design, development, and deployment of technologies.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.