Improving the Resilience of Saudi Smart Energy Grids through Distribution Network Planning, Testing and Asset Management
Abstract
Saudi Arabia is aiming to develop an electricity system that is more reliant on renewables, more digital, and more distributed, and as a result the importance of having a resilient distribution grid is growing. This study looks at how distribution network planning, testing and asset management can be combined in order to minimise service interruptions, manage lifecycle risks and deal with variable renewable generation, storage and flexible demand. The research carried out between 2020 and 2025 is organised around four closely related functions: risk-informed planning, verification and testing, condition-based asset management, and adaptive operation. It has been found that resilience cannot be achieved through the use of a single technology; rather, it arises as a result of coordinated decisions regarding topology, distributed energy resources, storage, protection, automation, equipment health, maintenance and restoration. Studies specific to Saudi Arabia show that expanding renewable energy capacity can improve adequacy, while probabilistic planning of storage can reduce losses and delay the need for network reinforcement; but these advantages depend on reliable models of uncertainty, protection coordination, the quality of the data and the state of the assets. The review suggests an integrated resilience lifecycle in which the assumptions made during planning are checked by means of studies and field tests, operating events update the asset health and the probabilities of failure, and decisions relating to maintenance and investment are then fed back into future network plans. Special attention is paid to the effects of extreme heat, dust, the intermittency of renewable energy, cybersecurity issues and the ageing of key transformer assets. The paper ends with a research programme that focuses on data from Saudi distribution systems, climate-conditioned failure models, hardware-in-the-loop validation, interoperable asset-health indices and the economic valuation of resilience. The framework thus provides utilities with a practical basis for linking their investments in resilience to their reliability, sustainability and Vision 2030 goals.