A Graph Theoretic Approach to Power System Vulnerability Identification

During major power system disturbances, when multiple component outages occur in rapid succession, it becomes crucial to quickly identify the transmission interconnections that have limited transfer capability. Understanding impact of an outage on these critical (called saturated cut-sets) is important for enhancing situational awareness and taking correct actions. This paper proposes a new graph theoretic approach analyzing whether contingency will create cut-set meshed network. A novel feature proposed algorithm lowers solution time significantly making viable real-time operations. It also indicates minimum amount by which through should be reduced so post-contingency saturation does not occur. Robustness enhanced demonstrated using IEEE-118 bus as well 17,000+ model Western Interconnection (WI). Comparisons made with different approaches vulnerability assessment prove utility scheme aiding operations during extreme exigencies.