Integrating Reliability Engineering and Resilience Assessment for Hybrid Renewable Energy Facilities Management in Northern Communities of Canada

拟议的发现计划将探索各种综合评估、优化和模拟模型的发展，为加拿大北部社区规模的可再生能源技术集成提供三层价值链-可靠性-弹性分析。这种过渡的主要挑战和障碍在于规模经济低，因为这些社区规模小，地理分布广泛。此外，可再生能源还包括生物能源、风能、太阳能和地热能等各种技术，这些技术在北方的可用性和潜力各不相同。在价值链层面，该计划调查技术或燃料供应商（在生物质的情况下），运输和物流公司以及社区的最佳或平衡协调。我们探索了一系列优化、博弈论、基于代理的方法在这些价值链的建模和分析中的发展。在可靠性工程层面，目标将是：1)通过自下而上（组件到系统）的方法，利用受北方运行条件影响的时间序列分析，调查可再生能源设施的退化和故障概况；2)考虑到社区的偏远性和反映这些设施运行连续性的重要性，优化设施的最大可用性；3)提出针对社区的维护调度方法，使已建立的故障概况与最佳可用性情景保持一致。在弹性层面，针对北方社区的可再生能源技术的弹性评估指标和指数将涵盖各种技术（生物质能、风能、太阳能和地热），并受未来气候情景和极端条件预测的影响。提出的三层面分析旨在全面了解加拿大北部社区采用可再生能源的机遇和挑战，并从价值链、可靠性和弹性角度对替代可再生能源技术进行比较分析。因此，通过多种能源的参与以及能源存储能力，促进可再生能源采用的混合方法，以确保北方社区能够承受和应对这些地区极端和不断变化的气候的增值和持续的可再生能源供应途径。在这方面，拟议研究计划的主要目标是建立一个研究环境，培养高素质的博士和硕士研究生，为加拿大离网和偏远社区提供混合可再生能源设施管理解决方案，符合联邦和省级经济脱碳目标，符合COVID-19后经济复苏的需要，符合对北部社区的关注，并提高居民的生活质量。

The proposed discovery program will explore development of various integrated assessment, optimization, and simulation models advocating a tri-level value chain-reliability-resiliency analysis for integration of renewable energy technologies at the community scale in northern Canada. The main challenge and barrier to such a transition rests in low economy of scale due to small sizes of these communities and their vast geographical dispersion. In addition, RES accounts for various technologies such as bioenergy, wind, solar, and geothermal, with varied availability and potentials across the north. At the value-chain level, the program investigates optimal or equilibrium coordination of suppliers of technologies or fuels (in case of biomass), transport and logistics firms, and communities. We explore development of a host of optimization, game-theoretic, agent-based approaches in modeling and analysis of such value-chains. At the reliability engineering level, the goal would be on 1) investigating the degradation and failure profile of renewable energy facilities through a bottom-up (components to system) approach using time-series analysis subject to operational conditions in the north, 2) optimizing for maximum availability of the facilities considering the remoteness of the communities and reflecting the significance of operational continuity of these facilities and 3) proposing community-specific maintenance scheduling approaches to align the established failure profiles with the optimal availability scenarios. At the resiliency level, indicators and indices for resiliency assessment of renewable energy technologies, specific to northern communities, will be developed across various technologies (biomass, wind, solar, and geothermal) and subject to future climatic scenarios and forecasts for extreme conditions. The proposed tri-level analysis targets a whole-system understanding of the opportunities and challenges of renewable energy adoption in northern communities of Canada as well as a comparative analysis of alternative renewable energy technologies in terms of value-chain, reliability, and resiliency perspectives. As such, a hybrid approach to renewable energy adoption is promoted with involvement of multiple sources of energy coupled with energy storage capacities to ensure value-added and continuous renewable energy supply pathways for northern communities that could withstand and respond to the extreme and changing climate in these geographies. In this regard, the main objective of the proposed research program is to establish a research environment for training of high qualified PhD and MSc students in hybrid renewable energy facilities management solutions for off-grid and remote communities in Canada in line with federal and provincial targets for decarbonisation of the economy, need to post COVID-19 economic recovery, and the emerging attention to northern communities and uplifting of the quality of life for their residents.