Power system Security

Power system security:

Power system security may be looked upon as the probability of the system's operating point
remaining within acceptable ranges, given the probabilities of changes in the system
(contingencies)and its environment.

Factors affecting the system security:

As a consequence of many widespread black-outs in interconnected power systems, the

priorities for operation of the modern power systems have evolved to the following :

 Operate the system in such a way that power is delivered reliably.

 Within the constraints placed on the system operation by reliability considerations, the
system will be operated most economically.
 Characteristics of the Physical System (Generation, Transmission and Distribution
Systems and Protection Systems)

Any piece of equipment in the system can fail either due to internal causes or due to external
causes such as lightning stroke, object hitting transmission towers, or human errors in setting
relays. Thus, most power systems are designed to have sufficient redundancy to withstand all
major failure events.

 Business structures of owning and operating entities.

 The regulatory frame work.

Major functions of the system security:

The functions of the systems security can be broken down into three major functions that are
carried out in an operations centre are as

 System monitoring
 Contingency analysis
 Security constrained optimal power flow.
System monitoring : It provides the operators of the power system with pertinent upto data
information on the conditions of the power system like voltages, currents, flows, status of
circuit breakers and switches with the help of telemetry.

Contingency analysis : The results of this type of analysis allow systems to be operated
defensively. Many of the problems that occur on a power system can cause serious trouble
which is often the case with cascading failures. In this analysis, certain programs are used
that model possible system troubles before they arise. These programs are based on a model
of the power system and are used to study outage events and alarm the operators about any
potential overloads or out-of-limit voltages.

Security constrained Optimal power flow : In this function, a contingency analysis is
combined with an optimal power flow which seeks to make changes to the optimal dispatch
of generation, as well as other adjustments, so that when a security analysis is run, no
contingencies result in violations.

Contingency analysis:

In the past many widespread blackouts have occurred in interconnected power

systems. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that power systems should be operated most
economically such that power is delivered reliably. Reliable operation implies that there is
adequate power generation and the same can be transmitted reliably to the loads. Most power
systems are designed with enough redundancy so that they can withstand all major failure
events. Here we shall study the possible Contingency Analysis in Power System and remedial
actions required by two main failure events: line outages and generating unit failures.

It is important to know which line or unit outages will render line flows or voltages to
cross the limits. To find the effects of outages, Contingency Analysis in Power System
techniques are employed. Contingency Analysis models single failure events (i.e. one-line
outages or one unit outages) or multiple equipment failure events (failure of multiple unit or
lines or their combination) one after another until all “credible outages” are considered. For
each outage, all lines and voltages in the network are checked against their respective limits.
The below Figure depicts a flow chart illustrating a simple method for carrying out a
Contingency Analysis in Power System.
Contingencyanalysis using Linear Sensitivity factors:

The problem of studying hundreds of possible outages becomes very difficult to solve if it is
desired to present the results quickly so that corrective actions can be taken. One of the
simplest ways of obtaining a quick calculation of possible overloads is to use network
sensitivity factors. These factors show the approximate change in line flows for changes in
generation on the network configuration and are derived from the DC load flow. They are of
two types:

 Generation shift distribution factors

 Line outage distribution factors

Briefly we shall now describe the use of those factors without deriving them. Reference gives
their derivation.

The generation shift factors, αii are defined as:

It is assumed in this definition that the change in generation  ΔPGi is exactly compensated by
an opposite change in generation at the slack (reference) bus, with all other generators
remaining fixed at their original power generations. The factor α ii then represents the
Sensitivity of the flow on the lth line to a change in generation at i th bus. Let us now study
the outage of a large generating unit and it was assumed that all the lost generation would be
be supplied by the reference or slack bus generation. Then

and the new power flow on each line could be calculated using a precalculated set of “α”
factors as given below.
The values of line flows obtained from Eq. (13.6) can be compared to their limits and those
violating their limit can be informed to the operator for necessary control action.

The generation shift Sensitivity Factor in Power System are linear estimates of the change in
line flow with a change in power at a bus. Thus, the effects of simultaneous changes on a
given number of generating buses can be computed using the principle of superposition.

Let us assume that the loss of the ith generator is to be made up by governor action on all
generators of the interconnected system and pick up in proportion to their maximum MW
ratings. Thus, the proportion of generation pick up from unit k (k ≠ i) would be

Now, for checking the lth line flow, we may write

In Eq. (13.8) it is assumed that no unit will violate its maximum limit. For unit limit
violation, algorithm can easily be modified.

Similarly the line outage distribution factors can be used for checking if the
line overloads when some of the lines are lost.

The line outage distribution factor is defined as:

If precontingency line flows on lines l and i, the power flow on line l with line i out can be
found out employing “d” factors.
Thus one can check quickly by precalculating ‘d’ factors all the lines for overloading for the
outage of a particular line. This can be repeated for the outage of each line one by one and
overloads can be found out for corrective action.

It may be noted that a line flow can be positive or negative. Hence we must check f against –
fl max as well as fl max,. Line flows can be found out using telemetry systems or with state
estimation techniques. If the network undergoes any significant structural change, the
Sensitivity Factor in Power System must be updated.
Contingency analysis using AC power flow methods:

The calculations made with the help of network sensitivity factors for contingency analysis
are faster, but there are many power systems where voltage magnitudes are the critical factor
in assessing contingencies. The method gives rapid analysis of the MW flows in the system,
but cannot give information about MVAR flows and bus voltages. In systems where VAR
flows predominate, such as underground cables, an analysis of only the MW flows will not
be adequate to indicate overloads. Hence the method of contingency analysis using AC
power flow is preferred as it gives the information about MVAR flows and bus voltages in
the system. When AC power flow is to be used to study each contingency case, the speed of
solution for estimating the MW and MVAR flows for the contingency cases are important, if
the solution of post contingency state comes late, the purpose of contingency analysis
fails. The method using AC power flow will determine the overloads and voltage limit
violations accurately. It does suffer a drawback, that the time such a program takes to execute
might be too long. If the list of outages has several thousand entries, then the total time to test
for all of the outages can be too long. However, the AC power flow program for contingency
analysis by the Fast Decoupled Power Flow (FDLF) [9] provides a fast solution to the
contingency analysis since it has the advantage of matrix alteration formula that can be
incorporated and can be used to simulate the problem of contingencies involving
transmission line outages without re inverting the system Jacobian matrix for all iterations.
Hence to model the contingency analysis problem the AC power flow method, using FDLF
method has been extensively chosen.
Contingency Selection: There are two main approaches:

Direct methods:

These involve screening and direct ranking of contingency cases. They monitor the
appropriate post-contingent quantities (flows, voltages). The severity measure is often a
performance index.

Indirect methods:

These give the values of the contingency case severity indices for ranking, without
calculating the monitored contingent quantities directly.

Since contingency analysis process involves the prediction of the effect of individual
contingency cases, the above process becomes very tedious and time consuming when
the power system network is large. In order to alleviate the above problem
contingency screening or contingency selection process is used. Practically it is found that all
the possible outages does not cause the overloads or under voltage in the other power system
equipments. The process of identifying the contingencies that actually leads to the violation
of the operational limits is known as contingency selection. The contingencies are selected
by calculating a kind of severity indices known as Performance Indices (PI) [1]. These
indices are calculated using the conventional power flow algorithms for individual
contingencies in an off line mode. Based on the values obtained the contingencies are ranked
in a manner where the highest value of PI is ranked first. The analysis is then done starting
from the contingency that is ranked one and is continued till no severe contingencies are
found.

There are two kind of performance index which are of great use, these are active power
performance index (PIP) and reactive power performance index (PIV). PIP reflects the
violation of line active power flow and is given by eq.2.6.

where,
Pi = Active Power flow in line i,
max
Pi = Maximum active power flow in line i,
n is the specified exponent,
L is the total number of transmission lines in the system
If n is a large number, the PI will be a small number if all flows are within limit, and it will be
large if one or more lines are overloaded. Here the value of n has been kept unity. The value
of maximum power flow in each line is calculated using the formula
where, Vi= Voltage at bus i obtained from FDLF solution
Vj= Voltage at bus j obtained from FDLF solution
X = Reactance of the line connecting bus „i‟ and bus „j‟
Another performance index parameter which is used is reactive power performance index
corresponding to bus voltage magnitude violations. It mathematically given by eq.2.8

where, Vi= Voltage of bus i

Vimax and Vimin are maximum and minimum voltage limits

13
Vinom is average of Vimax and Vimin
Npq is total number of load buses in the system
A flow chart for contingency selection technique is shown in Fig. 2.1
Concentric relaxation:
Bounding: