•Cascade tripping is the tripping of power grid in unbalanced

condition or it is the tripping of safety devices and isolation

of the part of the system to prevent damage to equipment.
Cascade tripping occurs during under frequency or other
unbalance condition.
•When demand is more than power generated the frequency
of machine goes down. When this frequency is less then
certain limit, the grid will trip .This will result in sudden loss
of power.
•If demand is less then generation, it will also cause such
situations. Which is also called blackout or grid failure.
 To avoid this synchronism must be maintained in the grid.
Synchronous generators thousands of kilometers apart must
operate stably and in synchronism during infinitely many load
and power transfer conditions, equipment outages, and power
disturbances following a short circuit or other disturbance, one
group of generators could accelerate relative to another group,
causing instability and loss of synchronism.
 Implications of blackout are clearly enormous for the electrical
power industry. Parts of grid are being stretched to their limits.
 In thermal plants under frequency causes following effect in
generator:
- Higher flux density resulting in machine saturation and higher field
requirement.
- Excessive core losses.
- Heating of core and other parts.
- Reduced speed reduced cooling effect.
- Reduced reactance of the machine resulting in higher fault currents.
 In hydro power plants under frequency causes following effect
in generator.
- Increases flux level and magnetic saturation.
- More iron losses.
- Over heating and over loading.
- Decreased speed and poor ventilation and hence overheating.
 Collapse of the Northern Regional Grid
of India
 The Northern Region Grid of India witnessed a massive disturbance on
2 January 2001. Over 1500 MW of generation was lost and the entire
region plunged into darkness, subjecting public at large to immense
inconvenience and a loss to the tune of 7 billion rupees. It took 16-20
hours for the system to limp back to near normalcy. The last major grid
disturbance in the region was in January 1997. The CEA (Central
Electricity Authority) carried out a comprehensive enquiry into the
incident following directions from the Ministry of power, and the
results have been made public. The CERC (Central Electricity
Regulatory Commission) initiated suo moto proceeding and passed an
order based on the public hearings held 15-16 January 2001
 The network should have sufficient capacity to allow the
unexpected loss of the most critical network element at any
time, without any primary transmission plant being overloaded
or any normal customer load being shed. This criterion has
been adopted for the analysis of future requirements included
in this review.
 To avoid cascade tripping we have to improve power grid
also. ORNL (oak ridge national laboratory) researchers are
helping industry develop and evaluate new technology that
could improve the efficiency and reliability of existing
transmission lines.
  A blackout = a power outage. This state means the loss of the
electricity supply to a part of the power system or to whole
power system.
 The blackout in the power system can cause:
1. power system equipment damage,
2. heavy economical losses,
3. life paralysis in stricken parts of country.
 It is necessary to notice that everyone is dependent on reliable
and quality power supply.
 Several power system blackouts became in the world of late
years. Causes of these disturbances were various – technical,
bad weather, human failing.
 Cascade tripping occurs due to unbalance in grid, mainly due
to under frequency situation. Under frequency in power
system occurs in the following circumstances.
1. During steady condition when on line generating capability
is inadequate to meet the load requirement a steady decline of
frequency occurs.
2. When sudden loss of large generating unit occurs or there is
a sudden tripping major of transmission line carrying bulk
load in a system, a sudden decline in frequency is observed.
 For all practical purposes, electricity flowing through grid
cannot be stored. Once it is generated electricity must flow
somewhere. If there is not enough demand it will cause
voltage spikes, if it is too little, it will cause voltage dips.
 For high voltage power to remain stable synchronism must be
maintained when the synchronism is disturbed by inevitable
local events such as sudden loss of major transmission line or
generator power can begin to flow in an uncontrolled manner
causing automatic safety devices to trip and isolate parts of the
system to prevent damage to equipment.
 Blackout result when generation is separated from load. The
grid typically will withstand any single event (single generator
failure or single transmission- line failure) under worst case
conditions.
 But the system can collapse if several failures take place in
rapid succession when the grid is already stressed.
 Such events include.
-Multiple lightning strikes
-Falling trees
-Equipment failure
-Human error
-Overloads, voltage sags, frequency deviations
 Balance supply and demand
 Balance reactive power supply and demand to maintain
voltages
 Monitor flows to prevent overloads and line overheating
 Keep the system stable
 Keep the system reliable, even after loss of a key facility
 Plan, design and maintain the system to operate reliably
 Prepare for emergencies Training Procedures and plans Back-
up facilities and tools Communications
 Each control area is responsible for its system
 To avoid blackout important point is to avoid frequency
variations and unbalances in grid and to maintain synchronism
in the grid.
 A system that could measure and monitor voltage and current
input through our the grid in real time has long been a priority
for utilities of governmental organization and major industrial
users such a system would enable operators to detect the first
signs of instability and take appropriate action to stop the
disturbance from spreading.
 The power grid of the future will include high temperature
superconducting (HTS) cables, with offer much less resistance to
the flow of electricity than do copper lines. “A superconducting
cable will conduct up to 5 times as much current as a copper
cable of the same size. Because an HTS cable loses little energy
as heat, it will cut electrical transmission losses in half, from 8%
to 4% .

 An HTS cable is more environmentally friendly than a copper

cable also because it is cooled with safe inexpensive liquid
nitrogen rather than oil-impregnated paper insulation, which may
leak oil.
 A new advanced phasor measurement system has been
developed which includes Global Positioning System (GPS)
and application software to measure and monitor the status of
a power grid. The PMUs (Phasor measurement units) are
located at key points in the grid, such as in substations, to
measure various types of input, such as synchronized phasor
measurements which allow to compute and to monitor
different type of instabilities (e.g. voltage instability,
frequency instability) on a System Monitoring Center.