Three Dimensional Visualizations for Power System Contingency Analysis Voltage Data

Contingency analysis (CA) as an inherent function of system security assessment is critical for detecting underlying problems in a power system. More frequent CA computation is required in the deregulated power markets to monitor the state of the system under “what if” situations in view of the fact that the power systems are now operated closer to their limits imposed by the increasing number of power transfers. The traditional EMS display of CA results is a list of violated elements for each contingency examined. Due to the tremendous amount of data computed and the traditional lack of a geographic connection between the violated elements and the contingency elements, interpretation of the contingency results is often time consuming. To aid power system operators with this interpretation, this paper explores several innovative and interactive 3D visualizations of CA voltage violation data. We visualize vulnerability levels of buses and severity information of outages separately and create a three-level visualization for each category. The overall CA results are conveyed at a glance by the top-level visualizations, while more detailed information can be displayed at the user’s request.