Reliable Implementation of Robust Adaptive Topology Control

The topology (transmission line) switching to achieve economic and reliability gains in the power grid has been proposed some time ago. This approach did not gain much attention until recently when large penetration of renewable generation created incentives to use transmission line switching to control sudden changes in power flows and mitigate contingencies caused by the generation variability. This paper explores implementation issues related to circuit breaker (CB) monitoring, relay setting coordination and detection of relay misoperations in the context of the topology switching sequence implementation. The paper covers risk-based assessment of CB status needed for determination of reliable switching sequences; it indicates how relay settings may be changed due to switching actions; it also provides an on-line algorithm for detection of relay misoperations, which identifies the lines that may be switched back to service after being trip erroneously by a relay.