Title :
Exploring Complex Systems Aspects of Blackout Risk and Mitigation
Author :
Newman, David E. ; Carreras, Benjamin A. ; Lynch, Vickie E. ; Dobson, Ian
Author_Institution :
Phys. Dept., Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK, USA
fDate :
3/1/2011 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
Electric power transmission systems are a key infrastructure, and blackouts of these systems have major consequences for the economy and national security. Analyses of blackout data suggest that blackout size distributions have a power law form over much of their range. This result is an indication that blackouts behave as a complex dynamical system. We use a simulation of an upgrading power transmission system to investigate how these complex system dynamics impact the assessment and mitigation of blackout risk. The mitigation of failures in complex systems needs to be approached with care. The mitigation efforts can move the system to a new dynamic equilibrium while remaining near criticality and preserving the power law region. Thus, while the absolute frequency of blackouts of all sizes may be reduced, the underlying forces can still cause the relative frequency of large blackouts to small blackouts to remain the same. Moreover, in some cases, efforts to mitigate small blackouts can even increase the frequency of large blackouts. This result occurs because the large and small blackouts are not mutually independent, but are strongly coupled by the complex dynamics.
Keywords :
large-scale systems; power system security; power transmission reliability; risk management; blackout risk mitigation; blackout size distributions; complex dynamical system; dynamic equilibrium; electric power transmission systems; power law form; Dynamics; Frequency measurement; Power system dynamics; Power transmission lines; Size measurement; Blackout risk; cascading failure; complex system; electric power transmission system; infrastructure; power law; self-organized criticality;
Journal_Title :
Reliability, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TR.2011.2104711