How much spare capacity is necessary for the security of resource networks?

The balance between the supply and demand of some kind of resource is critical for the functionality and security of many complex networks. Local contingencies that break this balance can cause a global collapse. These contingencies are usually dealt with by spare capacity, which is costly especially when the network capacity (the total amount of the resource generated/consumed in the network) grows. This paper studies the relationship between the spare capacity and the collapse probability under separation contingencies when the network capacity grows. Our results are obtained based on the analysis of the existence probability of balanced partitions, which is a measure of network security when network splitting is unavoidable. We find that a network with growing capacity will inevitably collapse after a separation contingency if the spare capacity in each island increases slower than a linear function of the network capacity and there is no suitable global coordinator. r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.