Application assessment of system protection schemes for power network congestion management

In order to enhance power system reliability and manage network congestions, many power utilities around the world have deployed various forms of system protection schemes (SPS) in their systems. In a deregulated environment, SPS could offer immediate solutions to network congestion that are beneficial to both utilities and customers. This paper presents a framework for quantitative risk and benefit assessments of SPS operations. The risk of SPS operations and its effect to the system security are evaluated by a probabilistic risk assessment approach. The benefits obtainable from power market and the customer interruption costs resulting from SPS operations are appraised. The proposed methodology can be used by power system operators and planners to assess the applications of SPS for system reliability enhancement and compare different alternatives for managing network congestion. Numerical results obtained from an actual event-based SPS example are presented.