POWER SYSTEM SECURITY ASSESSMENT

Classical to Intelligent Approach

Dr Sushil Chauhan
Professor, Electrical Engg. Department
National Institute of Technology
Hamirpur

On Line Security Assessment in

Power Systems
What is Power System Security?
Types of P.S Stability
Methods to evaluate P.S Security
Steady State Security
Dynamic Security
Deregulation and Security

Need for Security

It is highly uneconomical, if not impossible to
build power system with so much redundancy
(reserve generation, extra transmission line) that
equipment failures never cause load to be
curtailed in the system.
Power system are designed to have sufficient
redundancy to withstand all major failure events,
but this does not guarantee that the system will
be 100% reliable

Insecurity Costs Heavy

Secure operation of Power System has always
been an important consideration in its safe and
economic operation.
System with insufficient degree of security
becomes exposed to severe and in some cases
to catastrophic system failures as observed
recently in various power grid around the world.
Such events result in enormous economic costs
and may even lead to loss of life.

RECENT BLACKOUTS
2003 East Coast
Blackout
2003 Italian Blackout
2002 Swedish Blackout
1997- PJM Disturbance
1995- West Coast
Blackout
1995-PECO Disturbance
1987- City of Memphis

Level 1
(secure)

All load supplied. No operating limits violated. In event of

contingency, there will be No Violation

Level 2
(Correctively Secure)

Level 3
(Alert)

All load supplied.No operating limits Violated. Any violations

caused by a contingency can be corrected by appropriate control
action without loss of load

All load supplied. No operating limits violated..

Some violations caused by a contingency can not be
corrected
without loss of load

Level 4
(Correctable Emergency)

Level 5
(Non-correctable emergency)

All load supplied but operating limits are

violated. These can be corrected by appropriate
control action without loss of load

All load supplied but operating limits are violated.

These can not be corrected without loss of load
Control Actions

Level 6
(Restorative)_

No operating limits violated, but loss of load has

been suffered

What is Power System Security

There are three states of a Power System
Normal ( Secure and Insecure)
Emergency
Restorative
A System is normal when it satisfies all
load constraints,line flows and voltage
magnitudes are within limits

What is Power System

Security?
Even though a system is normal, a contingency
may push it to a state where load/engineering
constraints may not be satisfied.Then we call the
state insecure.
There are critical contingencies which an
operator may know based on past experience or
can be calculated On-Line.If the system is
normal for the critical contingencies then the
system is SECURE.
Examination of these contingencies On-Line can
be helpful in doing preventive rescheduling.
These issues came into focus after the 1965
blackout in USA and will receive even more
attention after the Aug. 14 blackout.

Types of Stability and its

evaluation
Steady State Stability(steady state
security assessment (SSA))
Transient Stability (Dynamic security
Assessment(DSA)
Voltage Stability ( Voltage security
Assessment(VSA))

Security Environment
Security involves three major operations at
Energy Management Centre
System Monitoring
Contingency Analysis
Security constrained optimal power flow

System Monitoring
It provides system operator with up-to-date
information on the state of the system
Critical quantities are measured across the
network (voltages, currents, power flow, states of
CB and switches etc) and telemetered to energy
centre
State estimator is used to combine telemetered
data with system to produce best estimate of
power system state
Such systems are equipped with SCADA to allow
operator to control CB, switches and Xer taps
remotely

Contingency Analysis
Contingency analysis program is run on
EMC m/cs to simulate system troubles
before they arise
Outcomes of outage events alarm
operators against overloads or out of limit
violations

Security Constrained OPF

Contingency analysis is combined with
OPF that seeks changes to optimal power
flow generation and adjustments so that
when security analysis is run no
contingency result in violation
To make it more evident we can divide
power system into four operating states

Contd.
Optimal Dispatch: It is the state of the system prior to
contingency optimal w.r.t economic operation but it
may not be secure
Post-contingency: It is the state of the system after
contingency has occurred. Let this state has security
violations in terms of line or Xer overload or bus voltage
outside limits
Secure Dispatch: It is the state of the system with no
contingency outages but with corrections to operating
parameters to account for security violations
Secure post- contingency: It is the state of the system
when contingency is applied to the base operating
condition with corrections

SCOPF
Programs which can make Control
adjustments to the pre-contingency state
to prevent violations in the post
contingency condition are called SCOPF
These programs take account of many
contingencies and calculate adjustments
to generator MW, generator voltages,
transformer taps etc.

Common Failures and their Impact

Transmission failure causes changes in
the flows and voltages. It requires method
to predict these flows and voltages so as
to be sure that they are within their
respective limits
Generation failure can also cause flows
and voltage to change and may introduce
dynamic problems involving system
frequency and generator output

Operation Engineer at EMC must

Know..
Which line or generator outage will cause flows
or voltages to fall outside limits
To predict the effects of outage contingency
analysis techniques are used
Contingency analysis procedure model single
failure events and multiple failure events one
after another until all credible contingencies
outages are studied
For each outage tested, contingency procedure
checks all lines and voltages in the network
against their limits.

START

SET SYSTEM MODEL TO

INITIAL CONDITIONS

SIMULATE AN OUTAGE OF A
GENERATOR OR A BRANCH

SELECT A
NEW OUTAGE

LIMIT VIOLATION
Y
ALARM MESSAGE
N

LAST OUTAGE
Y
END

Critical Issues in Contingency

Analysis
Speed of solution technique used
Selection of credible contingencies
Power system are constantly undergoing
changes and operator need to know if the
present state is safe without waiting too
long for the answer
Contingency analysis execution cycle of 1
min is typical for several thousand outages

Coping with the execution time of

contingency analysis
Use an approximate model of the power
system. DC load flow provides adequate
capability, however, it does not provide
any information of voltage magnitudes and
MAR flows
Systems where voltages and reactive
flows are of concern full AC load flow
analysis is required

Real-time Framework
Security analysis program to be run at
EMC must be executed very quickly in
order to be of any use to operators
study power system with approximate but very
fast algorithm
Select only critical contingencies for detailed
analysis
Computing system made of multiple
processors or vector processor to gain speed

AC Power flow
It is simply impossible, even on the fastest
processors to execute thousands of complete
AC power flows quickly enough
Fortunately, for most of the cases power flow
results do not have flow or voltage limit violation.
This elimination of non-critical cases come under
contingency selection or contingency screening
There are ways of running thousands of
contingency power flows through parallel
processing or through vector processor

Approximate but Fast

Algorithms
Linear Sensitivity Factors

Generation Shift Factor

f l
Pi

li

f l f l li Pi

ji

Pjmax
n

P
k 1
k i

max
k

f l f l li Pi lj ji Pli
j i

Line Distribution Factor

d lk

f l

fk
0

f l f l d lk f k

AC Power Flow for Contingency

Analysis
Network sensitivity methods are much faster
than those of AC power flow method. However,
in some systems voltage magnitude and VAR
flows are critical in assessing contingencies
In AC power flow, the speed of solution and
number of contingencies to be studied are
critical
Contingency alarms if come too late for
operators to act, then they are worthless

Dilemma
Can we go with fast and inaccurate
method (distribution factor) not providing
information about MVAR flows and
voltages ?
OR
Accurate AC power flow method taking too
much time

Way out of Dilemma

The way power system is designed and
operated, very few of the outages cause
trouble
To select and study only those
contingencies which cause over load or
voltage limit violations

Screening Issues
No exact procedure to select only bad or
likely trouble cases from the full outage
case list
- Placing too many cases on the short list
- conservative approach
-Skipping cases trouble without operator
being warned

Contingency Selection
Degree of impact of a contingency on a power system
can be measured in terms of performance index PI
Pflowl

Overload Performance Index

l

max
P
l

2n

PI will be small number if flows are within limits

PI will be large number if one or more lines overloaded
Detailed analysis can be done for contingencies in the
decreasing order of their PI
Value of n should be large to avoid masking effect
An outage case selection can be done by performing
1P1Q method. Here, PI can use as large an n value as
deserved say (5).

PI for line overload &voltage

magnitude
Both voltage magnitude and line overload can
be included in PI
Pflowl

2n

PI
l

Pl

max

Ei

2m

Ei

max

To perform security analysis, PI list is sorted so

that largest PI appears at the top. Thus, by
sorting from top power flow continues until either
a fixed number of cases is solved or until a
predetermined number of cases are solved
which do not have any alarms

Concentric Relaxation
Method is based on the fact that an outage has
limited geographical effect
Power system is divided into two parts: the
affected part and the part that is unaffected
Arbitrary no. of layers is chosen for power flow
with the outage in place. The buses in high
numbered layers are kept at const. voltage and
phase angle
Solution of layers included is considered as final
and can be used for calculation of PI

Bounding Method
It uses adjustable region around the
voltage to solve for outage case overloads
All circuits in N2 are safe from overload if
the value of Ii jI is less than the
smallest value of fpq(max). Xpq
N3
i

N j

N1
k

m
N2

Security in Regulated Regime

Regulated and vertically integrated power
system tended to be more secure for a number
of reasons.
Grids were designed, built and operated by
monopolies (usually govt. bodies and public
utilities)
Integrated planning ensured that generation and
transmission facilities kept pace with the load
thereby limiting overloading and failures of
equipments thus reducing system disturbances.
Maintenance programs were also rigorous in
nature.

Security in Regulated Regime

Forecasting system operating conditions was
simpler as there were fewer generation and
transmission owners and system were operated
in carefully planned and cooperative manner. It
resulted in fewer potential disturbances.
More robust in their response to disturbances
and more predictive in their pattern of operation.

Security in Deregulated Regime

The evolution of the electric power
industry toward open markets has
introduced a number of factors that
increased possible sources for system
disturbances
reduced the robustness of systems
reduced the predictability of operation

Towards Security in New

Competitive Environment
To ensure sufficient degree of reliability and
satisfactory operation over the long run the
system must be
Properly designed with security as primary
consideration
Monitored during operation to ensure that
sufficient security margin exists at all times
More rigorous security assessment and changed
requirements for the capabilities of power
system analysis tools

THANK YOU FOR YOUR

ATTENTION