Abstract
Motivated by the small world network research of Watts & Strogatz, this paper studies relationships between topology and cascading line outages in electric power grids. Cascading line outages are a type of cascading collapse that can occur in power grids when the transmission network is congested. It is characterized by a self-sustaining sequence of line outages followed by grid breakup, which generally leads to widespread blackout. The main findings of this work are twofold: On one hand, the work suggests that topologies with more disorder in their interconnection topology tend to be robust with respect to cascading line outages in the sense of being able to support greater generation and demand levels than more regularly interconnected topologies. On the other hand, the work suggests that topologies with more disorder tend to be more fragile in that should a cascade get started, they tend to break apart after fewer outages than more regularly interconnected topologies. Thus, as has been observed in other complex networks, there appears to be a tradeoff between robustness and fragility. These results were established using synthetically generated power grid topologies and verified using the IEEE 57 bus and 188 bus power grid test cases.
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Funding for this work was provided by National Science Foundation grant ECS-0323685, “Robustness, Efficiency, and Security of Electric Power Grids in a Market Environment.” Any opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
David L. Pepyne is a research scientist with the NSF Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MA, where he is developing resource allocation techniques for sensor networks consisting of large numbers of short range overlapping weather radars. He is also a principal analyst with BAE SYSTEMS, Advanced Information Technologies (BAE-AIT) in Burlington MA, where he works on technologies for predictive battlespace awareness, resource management in planning systems, and technologies for operational situational awareness. Dr. Pepyne received his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1999. He is an active member of the IEEE Control Systems Society interested in large-scale distributed and decentralized systems.
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Pepyne, D.L. Topology and cascading line outages in power grids. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 16, 202–221 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-007-5044-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-007-5044-8