Estimating the Impact of Earthquake-Induced Power Outages on Different Economic Sectors In Chile

The damage induced by strong earthquakes on the components of Electric Power Networks (EPNs) can seriously compromise the ability of these systems to generate and distribute electric power to final users and to interconnected utilities and industries. This results in large-scale impacts across infrastructure systems and economic sectors that rely upon EPNs. The objective of this work is to estimate the economic losses due to the reduction of the Chilean EPN functionality after the occurrence of disruptive seismic events. Economic losses have been estimated, at country and regional level, by applying the following main steps: (1) estimation of ground motion intensity measures for three earthquakes at the location of the EPN system components; (2) evaluation of the physical damage on the EPN system components; (3) evaluation of the EPN system functional consequence; and (4) estimation of the economic impacts on the electricity sectors and on the interconnected economic activities at regional and national level. Results of this analysis allow identifying the most impacted regions on the basis of the most impacted economic activities and can support decision-making for future investments to reduce the economic impacts produced by disruptive seismic events on EPNs and their interdependent industries.