Hurricane risk assessment of power distribution poles considering the impact of climate change

Storm related power outages cause approximately $270 million in repair costs, annually, in the United States (U.S.). Hurricane intensity or/and frequency may change due to the increase in sea surface temperature as a result of climate change. Current hurricane risk assessments of the power distribution system consider only current climate conditions; therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to explore the effects a changing climate may have on the failure rates of power distribution poles. This paper proposes a framework to evaluate the vulnerability of timber power distribution poles to hurricanes under the potential impact of climate change. The framework includes a reliability analysis of the designed distribution poles using fragility analysis, effect of degradation of timber poles, probabilistic wind models, and an assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on annual failure rates of distribution poles. This paper finds that climate change may have a significant effect on the structural failure probability of distribution poles