PUCMM Research Reveals Need for Advanced Studies in Electrical System

A university analysis suggests strengthening the infrastructure for managing outage data, as 36% of power outages occur for unknown causes Santiago.- The Research Team on Energy Resilience and Microgrids and the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CEUR) of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) valued the general power outage last Monday as a warning signal to strengthen the planning of the electrical system, not only from an operational perspective, but as a central component of the national risk management and resilience policy. Based on the research “Enhancing Climate Shock Vulnerability Assessment with Energy Reliability: A comprehensive case study of the Dominican Republic” conducted at PUCMM and recently published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, researchers Ramón Emilio De Jesús-Grullón, Rafael Batista, Oscar Atahualpa López and Daritza Nicodemo conducted a detailed analysis of the frequency, duration, and nature of interruptions and showed that these tend to concentrate in territories with higher levels of social vulnerability and climate exposure, amplifying their impacts.

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The study results suggest strengthening the interruption data management infrastructure, especially considering that 36% of the total events are due to unknown causes. Also, the development of modeling capabilities, scenario simulation, and optimization in resource allocation, to more accurately identify the critical zones, circuits, and components of the system. This analytical capacity constitutes a condition for prioritizing investments and designing effective mitigation and adaptation strategies in interdependent sectors. Researchers explained that this recent event made visible what normally remains invisible: electrical grids are the backbone of modern society and electricity is deeply integrated into every activity and economic process, to the point of becoming an essential input for contemporary life.

"A disaster of catastrophic scale is not required to demonstrate the fragility of critical infrastructures nor the cascading effects that can affect the economy, public health, water supply, telecommunications, and emergency services," they explained.

In this context, the university makes its research infrastructure available to the national energy sector to contribute to this challenge. The university has the first real-time simulation and microgrid laboratory in the country. The laboratory is a platform that allows recreating severe failure scenarios and evaluating recovery strategies before their implementation in the field, advanced simulation and planning capabilities that can help make decisions based on technical evidence and prospective analysis.