152
A REVIEW OF AUTOMATIC CONTINGENCY SELECTION ALGORITHMS FOR
ON-LINE SECURITY ANALYSIS
A. 0.EKWUE
National Grid Research ana Development centre uh'
INTRODUCTION
An essential aspect of modern power system
security assessment is the consideration of
any contingencies which may arise due, for
example, to planned or unplanned outages of
lines, and which may cause system overloads.
For power systems comprising of several
hundred lines, it is impractical to examine
all possible contingencies. Therefore, the
system engineer makes a judgement, based on
intuition and experience, and ranks
contingencies in order of importance. An
automatic contingency selection algorithm can
assist this process of security assessment by
providing an objective criterion to select the
most critical contingencies in a given system
state and to limit the number of contingencies
included in this assessment.
The objectives of this paper are:
(i) to present a critical assessment of
automatic contingency selection methods
as reported in the literature and
(ii) to identify the general requirements of
automatic contingency selection
algorithms in the real-time monitoring
and control of power systems.
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF AUTOMATIC CONTINGENCY
SELECTION (ACS) METHODS
Ejebe and Wollenberg in 1979 ( l ) , described a
gradient method with system wide performance
indices defined so as to quantify the extent
of active power overloads and abnormai system
voltages. The first order sensitivities of
these indices with respect to system parameter
changes were derived using Tellegen's theorem
and then used to rank these contingencies.
This method, which is the first technique
developed for automatic contingency selection,
was improved upon by Mikolinnas and Wollenberg
( 3 ) by including all terms of the Taylor's
series expansion for the changes in these
performance indices. Irisarri et a 1 (2) used
DC loadflows to calculate the performance
index for quantifying the extent of line
overloads. An efficient computational
procedure for the implementation of the DC
loadflows involving one forward - backward
substitution was described in ( 4 ) as an
improvement to the development in ( 2 ) . The
results obtained using the base case
conditions of the American Electric Power
Corporation (AEP) State Estimator were
discussed.
Albuyeh et a1 (5) examined the automatic
selection of those contingencies causing
unacceptable voltage profiles using the first
iteration of the AC loadflow. This method was
claimed to be accurate because the base case
loadflow results were used as the starting
point for the contingency evaluations.
However, when voltage controls are involved,
the reliability of this technique may not be
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adequate as the large voltage deviations
involved may not be apparent after a single
iteration. A technique which uses the load
curtailment required to raise bus voltages to
the pre-contingency level as an indication of
the severity of a contingency was described by
Medicherla and Rastogi (6). Khu et a1 (7)
proposed a method based on DC loadflow for
evaluating bus voltage changes following a
contingency from an accurately converged
loadflow base case. Though the method is non-
iterative, a solution is always guaranteed.
It is a fast technique but would be inaccurate
when voltage controls are incorporated; hence
misrankinqs are expected to result.
Vemuri and Usher (8) presented a unified
approach of calculating the sensitivity of
performance index for single line outages,
yeneration/load outages or a combination of
them and concluded that:
(i) the methods based on sensitivity analysis
are less accurate than the distribution
factor method. They are also faster with
satisfactory storage requirements, and
hence attractive for On-line
applications.
(ii) it is necessary to include secondary
outages in an overall automatic
contingency selection algorithm.
The identification and ranking of credible
outages in dependent variable space was
carried out in an algorithm developed by
Wasley and Daneshdoost (,9) with simple
computational procedures using one iteration
o t an approximate loadflow applied to each
contingency. Lauby et a1 (10) compared three
techniques of contingency selection of branch
outages causing voltage problems: a
performance index method, a local solution
method and a single iteration of the fast
decoupled loadflow method ( 3 3 ) . When tested
on a 1200 bus network, the local solution
method had the best performance though it was
not as fast as the performance index method.
Halpin et a1 (11) described a procedure for
quantifying the effectiveness of contingency
selection algorithms in capturing
contingencies which result in out-of-limit
conditions whereas Galiana (12) described a
method for linear contingency analysis and
ranking which bounds above and below the
contingency power flows.
Lao and Bismil in (13) compute the bus-voltage
changes for the contingencies based on the
distribution factor principle and use the load
curtailment concept developed by Medicherla et
a1 ( 6 ) for ranking purposes. The accuracy of
this method was compared using the fast-
decoupled loadflow (33) technique with the
Voltage performance index described by Albuyeh
et a1 ( 5 ) . Nara et a1 (14) developed a
performance index defined as a second order
Vector norm in the voltage space with two
types of limits: alarm and security. Stott et
a 1 in (15) described several enhancements to
performance-index ranking algorithms and they
 153

derived general ranking formulas valid for line overloads using second-order loadflow and
multiple contingencies. a compensation procedure for single-line
outage evaluation. Ekwue (31) investigated
Dabbaghchi and Irisarri ( : 6 ) described the performance indices for ranking of
details of voltage Contingency selection contingencies causing generator reactive power
algorithm implemented at AEP's system control violations as well as the selection of active
centre in Columbus, Ohio. This was based on power ( M W ) injection contingencies adversely
the DC loadflow method to evaluate the post- affecting transmission line flows.
contingent angles and then the fast decoupled
loadflow method to determine the Post-
contingent voltages. From this, a quadratic REQUIREMENTS FOR ON-LINE IMPLEMENTATION
performance index for each contingency
calculated. Chen and Bose (27) improved on The important considerations in the selection
this technique. Verstege and Schafer in (17) of an appropriate automatic contingency
and (22) used an adaptive procedure to selection algorithm for the real-time
circumvent the "masking" effects monitoring and control of power systems are:
characteristic of performance - index based (a) The algorithm should:
techniques for contingency selection
algorithms. Lauby (18) extends their previous (i) be able sufficiently to
methods in (7) and (10) by describing a new discriminate a small set of
screening method involving a local DC solution contingencies for analysis;
for branch flow limit overloads, for
incorporation in a performance-index based (ii) accommodate changes in the on-
technique. The results of the Method were line contingency list as well
compared with those from a full DC loadflow. as changes in the network
Ejebe et a1 (19) described a fast security topology ;
analysis technique for voltage security
assessment which identifies the location of (iii) efficiently simulate
busbars with potential voltage problems. contingencies involving
complicated changes due to
Lo et a1 compared MW ranking methods in (20) say, bus section faults;
and voltage ranking techniques in (24). This
separate comparison was necessary because (i-4 consider the adjustment of Q-
there is no correlation between contingencies limits violations due to an
that produced high line overloads and those outage and
that resulted in high voltage changes.
Mohammed and Jasmon (21) used the super (V) also consider the number and
decoupled loadflow formulation and a voltage magnitude of voltage
performance index based on voltage violations. violations and their relative
importance.
Since a large number of contingencies need to
be analysed to select the critical outages The last 2 factors can give rise to
with good reliability, an adaptive pre-filter inconsistent and unreliable ranking of outages
technique for voltage contingency selection for voltage-based automatic contingency
was described by Chen and Bose in (23). The routines, particularly.
output of the filter is a shorter list which
can be applied to any conventional ranking (b) There should be a good compromise between
program for further selection of the critical computational effort and speed.
contingencies. AS a follow-up in this line of
research, Brandwajn and Lauby (25) described
a method based on a boundina criterion to
reduce the number of power-flow calculations
for consequent limit checking as well as the (c) Adequate computer memory should be
available for large systems.
number of buses where Q - mismatches are to be
calculated. This handles contingencies with
network topology changes of any type. This Some Of the future research needs in this area
idea was extended in (32) by describing a include (32) :
- -
multi-level continaencv screenina method to
process large sets of candidate contingencies. (i) extending the present
The objective is to pre-screen these techniques to consider
contingencies using simplified techniques so generator and load changes as
that more precise algorithms can be applied to well as
a considerably reduced set of contingencies.
schlueter et a1 ( 2 6 ) described several new (ii) further investigations into
contingency selection measures and those the handling of multiple
applicable for multiple contingency selection contingencies
methods.
Terra and Short ( 2 8 ) described an approach for CONCLUSIONS
VAR/Voltage contingency selection which takes
into account the structure of the problem for The paper has
significant gains in CPU time. Also a new
compensation method for the VAr/voltage model (i) Presented a historical survey of
of the network was, derived in the paper. automatic contingency selection
Ekwue and Laing ( 2 9 ) critically investigated methods as reported in the
methods for improving the accuracy and literature and
reliability of a technique which used second-
order loadflow method based on rectangular (ii) identified the overall requirements
coordinates and the performance index Of algorithms for on-line
described in (6). This is a continuation of implementation in Energy Management
an earlier work of Ekwue and Short (30) based Systems.
on a decoupled technique for voltage drop and

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 154

13. Lo K L and Bismil M A , 1985

With the advances in modern computer A new ranking method for power system
technology, memory requirements may no longer security analysis Proceedings of
be a problem. This may have an effect on the University Power Engineering conference
general subject of contingency selection for
security studies. However, automatic
Huddesfield pp 408 411 -
contingency selection will still be necessary 14. Nara K, Tanaka K, Shoults R R , Chen M S ,
foc optimum power flows, say, when contingency Olinda P V and Bertagnolli D, 1985
constraints are included. On-line contingency selection algorithm
for voltage security analysis I E E E
Transactions on Power Apparatus and
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Systems vol. PAS - 104 No 4 April
pp 847 - 856
The work was performed at the National Grid
Research and Development Centre, Leatherhead 15. Stott 8, Alsac 0 and Alvarado F L, 1985
and is published by the permission of the Analytical and Computational improvements
National Grid Company Plc. in performance index ranking algorithms
for networks Int J of Electrical Power
and Energy Systems Vol. 7 No 3
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1. Ejebe G C and Wollenberg B F, 1979 16. Dabbaghchi I and Irisarri G, 1986
Automatic Contingency Selection AEP Automatic Contingency Selector:
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On-line security analysis real time tests 17. Verstege J F and Schafer K F, 1987
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February pp 608 - 617 Evaluation of a local DC Loadflow
screening method for branch contingency
4. Irisarri G and Sasson A M, 1981 selection of overloads IEEE Transactions
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Wollenberg B F, 1988
5. Albuyeh F, Bose A and Heath B, 1962 Fast contingency, screening and
Reactive Power Considerations in evaluation for voltage security analysis
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6. Medicherla T K P and Rastogi S C, 1982 A comparison of MW ranking methods
A voltaqe-criterion based continaencv Electkic Power Systems Research
selection technique ibid No. 9 September
~1
Vol. 15 pp 157 - 171
pp 3523 - 3531
21. Mohammed A and Jasmon G B, 1989
7. Khu K T, Lauby M G and Bowen D W, 1982 Voltage contingency selection technique
A fast linearization method to evaluate for security assessment
the effects of circuit contingencies upon IEE Proceedings Vol. 136 Part C January
system load bus - voltages. pp 24 - 28
ibid No. 10 October 3926 - 3932 22 K F Schafer and Verstege J F , 1989
8. Adaptive procedure for masking effect
Vemuri S and Usher R E, 1983 compensation in contingency selection
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algorithms ibid Vol. PAS - 102 NO. 2 Washington pp 232 - 238
February pp 346 - 354
23 Chen Y and BOSe A, 1989
9. Wasley R G and Daneshdoost M, 1963 An adaptive pre-filter for the voltage
Identification and Ranking of critical contingency selection function
contingencies in dependent variable space ibid pp 225 - 231
ibid No. 4 April pp 881 - 892
24. Lo K L, Bismil M A, McColl R D and Moffat
10. Lauby M G , Mikolinnas and Reppen N D, A M, 1989
1983 Contingency selection of branch A Comparison of Voltage Ranking Methods
outages causing voltage problems Electric Power Systems Research Vol 16
ibid No. 12 December pp 3899 - 3904 pp 127 - 140
11. Halpin T F , Fischl R and Fink R , 1984 25. Brandwajn V and Lauby M G , 1989
Analysis of Automatic contingency Complete Bounding Method for AC
selection algorithms ibid Vol. PAS - i o 3 Contingency Screening IEEE Transactions
No. 5 May pp 938 - 945 on Power Systems Vol 4 No 2 May
pp 724 - 729
12. Galiana F D, 1984
Bound estimates of the severity of line
outages in power system contingency
analysis and ranking
ibid No. 9 September, pp 2612 - 2624

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 155

26. Schlueter R A, Sekerke J E, Burnett R L

and Costi A G 1989
Improved contingency measures for
operation and planning applications
ibid Vo1 4 No 4 October pp 1430-1437
27. Chen Y and Bose A, 1989
Direct ranking for voltage contingency
selection
ibid pp 1335 1344-
28. Terra L D B and Short M J , 1990
VAR/Voltage Contingency Selection
Proceedings of the 10th PSCC Graz Austria
pp 574 -
581

29. Ekwue A 0 and Laing W D, 1990

Critical evaluation of voltage-based
contingency selection algorithms for on-
line applications ibid pp 835 - 839
30. Ekwue A 0 and Short M J, 1990
Improved decoupled contingency selection
algorithm (to be published in Electric
Power Systems Research Journal)
31. Ekwue A 0, 1990
On the ranking of contingencies for on-
line applications Electric Power Systems
Research Journal Vol. 19 pp 207 - 212
32. Brandwajn V, Liu Y and Lauby M G, 1990
Pre-screening of single contingencies
causing network topology changes
Paper no. 90SM 487-9 PWRS presented at he
IEEE Power Engineering Society Summer
meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota
33. Stott B and Alsac 0, 1974
Fast decoupled loadflow
ibid VOl. PAS-93 pp 859-869

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