Assessment and Mapping of Extreme Ice Accretion Damage on Electricity Infrastructure Due to Freezing Rain in China

Abstract

Extreme weather events, particularly freezing rain (FR), pose significant threats to electricity infrastructure through ice accretion on transmission lines and towers. This study conducted a comprehensive national-scale assessment of FR impacts on China’s electricity infrastructure using an enhanced methodological framework. We integrated high-resolution (0.1°) gridded FR data spanning 2000–2019 with infrastructure data from OpenStreetMap, developing Gaussian kernel density estimation models to map damage probability distributions and employing generalized extreme value distributions to project future vulnerabilities. Our analysis quantified combined ice and wind loads on high-voltage (HV) lines and transmission towers, assessed damage probabilities, and evaluated the effectiveness of de-icing (DI) measures across different return periods (50, 100, 200, and 500 years). The results reveal distinct spatial patterns of risk, with Hunan Province consistently emerging as the most critical hotspot. Feature importance analysis using random forest methodology demonstrated that ice load dominated HV line failures (60–85% importance), while transmission towers exhibited more complex risk patterns with significant contributions from drag forces (30–50%) in southern regions. Model validation against the catastrophic 2008 ice storm shows strong predictive capabilities (R² > 0.95) for most provinces. Critically, while DI measures effectively reduce risk for moderate events (50-year return period), their effectiveness diminishes substantially for extreme scenarios (500-year return period), with high-risk categories persisting in provinces like Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, and Zhejiang Provinces. These findings provide actionable insights for developing targeted, region-specific resilience strategies and highlight the need for adaptive risk management approaches that scale with event severity across China’s diverse geographical regions.

Keywords

China / Electricity infrastructure / Freezing rain / Ice accretion / Risk assessment

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