###### Abstract  
Microgrids have the potential to provide reliable electricity to key components of a smart city's critical infrastructure after a disaster, hence boosting the microgrid power system's resilience. Policymakers and electrical grid operators are increasingly concerned about the appropriate configuration and location of microgrids to sustain post-disaster critical infrastructure operations in smart cities. In this context, this paper presents a novel method for the microgrid allocation problem that considers several technical and economic infrastructure factors such as critical infrastructure components, geospatial positioning of infrastructures, power requirements, and microgrid cost. In particular, the geographic allocation of a microgrid is presented as an optimization problem to optimize a weighted combination of the relative importance of nodes across all key infrastructures and the associated costs. Furthermore, the simulation results of the formulated optimization problem are compared with a modified version of the heuristic method based on the critical node identification of an interdependent infrastructure for positioning microgrids in terms of the resilience of multiple smart critical infrastructures. Numerical results using infrastructure in the city of Pittsburgh in the USA are given as a practical case study to illustrate the methodology and trade-offs. The proposed method provides an effective method for localizing renewable energy resources based on infrastructural requirements. microgrid architecture; smart infrastructure; resilience; optimization model; critical node identification +
Footnote †: journal: Applied sciences  
tornadoes, drought-induced wildfires, etc.) is a growing vulnerability concern as the frequency, intensity, and geographic scope of severe weather events are predicted to increase with climate change [3]. Currently, severe weather events [4] are the number one reason for power outages in the United States, which are in turn, the top reason for outages in ICT services. For that, intelligent infrastructures provide more consistent and reliable system performance, new features/functions, and increased sustainability. Industrial scale microgrids are basically self-supporting power systems typically in the 1.5-5 MW range. They have been advocated as a mechanism to improve the availability of power to significant societal and business facilities such as hospitals, military bases, and factories. Additionally, microgrids are promoted as an approach to incrementally incorporate shared renewable power production, such as wind and solar, into the bulk power grid in the case of disaster [5]. Microgrids are also proposed in the literature as a solution to achieve climate adaptation and mitigation goals [6]. Figure 1 gives a typical microgrid architecture. As shown in Figure 1, the building blocks of the microgrid are the controller, electrical power switches, local energy supplies (e.g., solar cells, wind turbines, and diesel generators), energy storage, and various loads. Microgrids are designed to operate in standalone mode and joined mode to the primary grid. In the joined mode scenario, the microgrid serves as additional energy back up to the bulk power system, decreasing peak loads, enhancing power stability, and reducing harmful emissions [7]. In island mode, the microgrid disconnects from the bulk grid and functions as a standalone power supply. The microgrid controller manages the transitions between modes seeking to maintain voltage and synchronization while minimizing load dropping and disruption. Since the available power is limited in island mode, the power loads are grouped into their significance categories: mission critical, mission priority, and non-critical. Mission critical loads are given the highest priority and consists of the essential components of the critical infrastructures of interest (e.g., hospitals, water treatment plants, and cellular network base stations).