Branch Outage Simulation for

Contingency Studies

Dr.Aydogan OZDEMIR, Visiting Associate Professor

Department of Electrical Engineering,
Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843
Tel : (979) 862 88 97 , Fax : (979) 845 62 59
E-mail : ozdemir@ee.tamu.edu
Aydoğan Özdemir was born in Artvin, Turkey, on
January 1957. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc. and
Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from
Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey in
1980, 1982 and 1990, respectively. He is an
associate professor at the same University. His
current research interests are in the area of electric
power system with emphasis on reliability analysis,
modern tools (neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic
algorithms etc.) for power system modeling,
analysis and control and high-voltage engineering.
He is a member of National Chamber of Turkish
Electrical Engineering and IEEE.
Power System Security
Power system security is the ability of the system to withstand one or more component
outages with the minimal disruption of service or its quality.

Outages of component(s)

Overstress on the other components

No limit violation limit violation(s)

operation of protective devices

and switching of the unit(s)

partial or total loss of load

 monitoring
POWER SYSTEM
contingency analysis
SECURITY security constrained opf

Monitoring : Data collection and state estimation

The objective of steady state contingency analysis is to
investigate the effects of generation and transmission
unit outages on MW line flows and bus voltage
magnitudes.
 START

SET SYSTEM MODEL TO

INITIAL CONDITIONS

SIMULATE AN OUTAGE OF A
GENERATOR OR A BRANCH

N
SELECT A LIMIT VIOLATION
NEW OUTAGE
Y
ALARM MESSAGE

N
LAST OUTAGE

Y
END
Real-time applications require fast and reliable computation methods due to the high number of
possible outages in a moderate power system.
However, there is a well-known conflict between the accuracy of the method applied and the
calculation speed.

Exact solution Full AC power flow

for each outage not feasible
for real-time
applications.
Check the limit
violations

approximate methods to quickly

identify conceivable
contingencies
real-time applications
AC power flows only for
critical contingencies.

Check the limit violations

APPROXIMATE CONTINGENCY ANALYSIS
Contingency ranking contingencies are ranked in an approximate order of a scalar performance
index, PI.
contingencies are tested beginning with the most severe one and
proceeding down to the less severe ones up to a threshold value.
Masking effect causes false orderings and misclassifications.

Contingency screening
Explicit contingency screening is performed for all contingencies, following
an approximate solution (DC load flow, one iteration load flow, linear
distribution or sensitivity factors etc.)
Contingency screening is performed in the near vicinity of the outages (local
solutions)

Hybrid methods utilizing both the ranking and the screening

 outage of a branch or a generation unit

MW line flow overloads voltage magnitude both

violations

DC load flows involves more complicated models

Sensitivity factors and better computation algorithms
LINE OUTAGE SIMULATION

An outage of a line can either be simulated by setting its impedance, y ij = 0 or by injecting

hypothetical powers at both ends of the line. The latter method is preferred to preserve the
original base case bus admittance matrix.

i Sij=0 Sji=0 j

Sij  0 yij  0 S ji  0 i Sij  0

yij S ji  0j
i j

yi 0  0 y j0  0 S si yi 0 y j0 S sj

Determination of the hypothetical sources so

Z-Matrix techniques
Modification of ZBUS is
required for each outage
that all the reactive power circulates through
the outaged line while maintaining the same
voltage magnitude changes in the system
SIMULATION FOR MW LINE FLOW PROBLEM
DC LOAD FLOW :

ΔP  BΔδ , [B' ]ij  1 / xij , [B' ]ii  1 / xik , xij  Re al{1 / yij }
k
outage of a line connected between busses i and j 

ΔP  [0 0 .. 0 Psi 0...  Psi 0..0]T ; Psi  Re al{S si }

Δδ  X[0 0 ..0 1 0 0 ..  1..0 0]T Psi , X  [B ] 1

The new real power flow through the line connected between busses n and m can be
derived and approximated as,

~ 1
Pnm  Pnm  Pnm  Pnm  ([X]nn  [X]mm - 2[X]nm ) Psi
xlm

See “Power Generation, Operation and Control by Wood and Wollenberg” for details
SIMULATION FOR VOLTAGE MAGNITUDE PROBLEM

Linear models are not sufficient for most outages

Reactive power flows can not be isolated from bus voltage phase
angles

Involves more complicated models and better computation algorithms

i Qij j
QijT Q Tji Qji

Q Li Q Lj

b Can be split up
Qij   Im ag{Vi*. yij .V j }  [Vi2 ViV j cos  ji ] bij  ViV j g ij sin  ji Vi2 i 0 into two parts,
2
Transferring reactive power
QijT  [Vi2 V j2 ]bij / 2  ViV j gij sin  ji assumed to flow through
the line
QTji  QijT

Loss reactive power

bij b assumed to allocated
QLi  [Vi2  V j2  2ViV j cos  ji ]  (Vi2  V j2 ) i 0
2 4 at the busses
QLj  Q Li
Line outage simulation by hypothetical reactive power sources

i Q 0
ij QijT  QijT Q ji  0 j

Qsi  QijT  QLi QLi QLi Qsi  QijT  QLi

For a tap changing transformer, cross flow through the equivalent impedance is considered to be the
transferring reactive power, where shunt flows can be considered as the loss reactive powers.

bus i bus j
bus i a :1 bij QijT QTji
bij
bus j

1 1 QLi 1
( 1)bij QLj (1  )bij
a a a

Transferring reactive power is sensitive both to bus voltage magnitudes and bus voltage phase angles.
 
However, loss reactive power is dominantly determined by bus voltage phase angles and has a weak
coupling with bus voltage magnitudes. Therefore, transferring reactive powers are enough for a
reasonable accuracy.
Hypothetical reactive power injections to bus i and bus j, will result in a change in net
reactive bus powers Qi and Qj. This in turn, will result in a change in system state
variables with respect to pre-outage values. This change must be equivalent to the
changes when the line is outaged.
Load bus reactive powers do not satisfy the nodal power balance equation due to the
errors in load bus voltage magnitudes calculated from linear models. Therefore, part
of the fictitious reactive generation flows through the neighboring paths instead
circulating through the outaged branch. These reactive power mismatches can
mathematically be expressed as,

 * 
Qi   Im ag V i  ik k    Q ik  Q ij  Q si  Q Di
Y 
V
 k  k j
 *     Q  Q  Q  Q
Q j   Im ag V j  Y V
jk k jk ji sj Dj
 k  k i

where Qi and QDi are the net reactive power and the reactive demand at load bus i, is the
complex voltage at bus i and Yik is the element of bus admittance matrix. The superscript *
denotes the conjugate of a complex quantity. Calculated load bus voltage magnitudes need to
be modified in a way to minimize the bus reactive power mismatches at both ends of the
outaged line.
 This can be accomplished a local optimization formulation
1. Select an outage of a branch, numbered k and connected between busses i and j.
2. Calculate bus voltage phase angles by using linearized MW flows.
 
 l   l  ( X li  X lj ) Pk , l=2,3,…, NB
 
Pij
  Pk 
1  ( X ii  X jj  2 X ij ) / x k

where X is the inverse of the bus suseptance matrix, P ij is the pre-outage active
power flow through the line and xk is the reactance of the line.
~ ~
3. Calculate intermediate loss reactive powers, Q Li  Q Lj
4. Minimize reactive power mismatches at busses i and j, while satisfying linear reactive
power flow equations. Mathematically, this corresponds to a constrained optimization
process as,
Minimize (Qi  Qij  Q Di ) ( Q j  Q ji  Q Dj )
T
wrt Qij

Subject to g q (V )  Q  BV  

~
Qij  QijT  QLi reactive power flows
~ through the outaged
Q ji  QijT  QLi
line
SOLUTION OF THE CONSTRAINED OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM

After having formulated the outage simulation as a constrained optimization problem,

minimization can be achieved by solution of the partial differential equations of the augmented
Lagrangian function

L(QijT , V,   (Qi  Qij  QDi ) 2  ( Q j  Q ji  QDj ) 2    [B 1Q  V]

with respect to QijT , V and  . Note that V does not need to include all the load bus
voltage magnitudes; instead only busses i, j and their first order neighbors are enough
for optimization cycle.

Drawback : Convergence to local maximum

Single direction search
SOLUTION BY GENETIC ALGORITHMS
Evolutionary algorithms are stochastic search methods that mimic the metaphor of natural biological
evolution.
Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are perhaps the most widely known types of evolutionary computation methods
today.
 
GAs operate on a population of potential solutions applying the principle of survival of the fittest procedure
better and better approximation to a solution. At each generation, a new set of better approximations is
created by selecting individuals according to their fitness in the problem domain. This process leads to the
evolution of populations of individuals that are better suited to their environment than the individuals that
they were created from.
Generate initial
population
For the details of the processes see
“Cheng, Genetic
evaluate objective
function Algorithms&Engineering
GENERATE NEW Optimization by M. Gen, R., New
POPULATION York: Wiley, 2000 “. Such a single
N optimization population GA is powerful and
selection
criteria performs well on a broad class of
crossover met optimization problems.
Y
mutation
best
individuals

result
 BASE CASE LOAD FLOW

SELECT AN OUTAGE
bounded network

CALCULATE BUS VOLTAGE PHASE ANGLES

i j
Minimize Qij Q ji

outaged branch wrt QijT

subject to V  X Q

CALCULATE THE
REMAINING QUANTITIES

END
NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
 
IEEE 14-Bus test System

G G
2 3
Base case control variables :
G PG2 = 0.4 p.u.
1 PG3 = PG6 = PG8 = 0.0 p.u.
5 4 V1 = 1.06 p.u.
V2 = 1.045 p.u.
V3 = 1.01 p.u.
G V6 = 1.07 p.u.
8 7 V8 = 1.09 p.u.
G B9 = 0.19 p.u.
t4-7 = 0.978
6 11 10 9 t4-9 = 0.969
t5-6 = 0.932
12

Q7-9 = 27.24 Mvar

13 14
Q5-6 = 12.42 MVar
Post-Outage Voltage Magnitudes for IEEE-14 Bus Test System
Bus Outage of Line 7-9 Outage of transformer 5-6
No VLF [pu] VPF [pu] V [%] VLF [pu] VPF [pu] V [%]
1 1.060 1.060 0.0 1.060 1.060 0.0
2 1.045 1.045 0.0 1.045 1.045 0.0
3 1.010 1.010 0.0 1.010 1.010 0.0
4 1.015 1.015 0.0 1.015 1.023 0.8
5 1.016 1.018 0.2 1.025 1.032 0.7
6 1.070 1.070 0.0 1.070 1.070 0.0
7 1.066 1.068 0.1 1.055 1.055 0.0
8 1.090 1.090 0.0 1.090 1.090 0.0
9 0.988 0.993 0.5 1.046 1.038 0.8
10 0.994 0.999 0.5 1.043 1.036 0.7
11 1.027 1.030 0.3 1.053 1.049 0.4
12 1.050 1.051 0.1 1.052 1.054 0.2
13 1.040 1.041 0.1 1.049 1.048 0.1
14 0.992 0.996 0.4 1.028 1.024 0.4
Maximum error: 0.5 % Maximum error: 0.8 %
Post-outage reactive power flows for IEEE-14 Bus Test Systems

Line Outage of Line 7-9 Outage of transformer 5-6

l=m QPF QDF eQ QPF QDF eQ
[MVa [Mvar [MVar] [Mvar]
r] ] [Mvar] [Mvar]
1-2 -20.3 -20.2 0.07 -21.6 -21.1 0.53
1-5 5.4 4.4 0.98 1.3 -1.3 2.64
2-3 3.6 3.6 0.02 3.3 3.3 0.03
2-4 0.2 -0.1 0.27 -1.6 -5.8 4.15
2-5 2.8 1.7 1.15 -1.3 -4.2 2.90
3-4 5.3 5.0 0.33 3.7 -0.1 3.81
4-5 12.0 9.0 3.02 8.6 14.0 5.35
4-7 -14.1 -14.8 0.70 -5.1 -0.8 4.31
4-9 13.2 12.9 0.32 3.0 6.4 3.35
5-6 12.8 13.8 0.97 42.6
6-11 14.6 12.9 1.73 19.5 19.9 0.41
6-12 3.7 3.5 0.20 5.1 4.7 0.36
6-13 13.0 12.0 0.96 15.1 15.5 0.42
7-9 86.7 9.6 17.7 8.12
9-10 -5.5 -4.8 0.71 -8.2 -8.9 0.66
9-14 -2.6 -1.9 0.70 -4.6 -5.5 0.88
10-11 -11.3 -10.2 1.11 -14.9 -15.5 0.64
12-13 1.9 1.6 0.34 3.4 3.5 0.06
13-14 8.3 7.4 0.85 12.4 12.2 0.24
7-8 -14.5 -13.3 1.21 -21.2 -21.2 0.04
 IEEE 57-Bus Test System

G G G
5 4 3 2 1 16

45 15 17
G 18 19 20
6
14 13 12
21
G
46

47
44 48 50
26 24 49
23 22 38
2 39 57
37
25
40 56 41 11
36
27
30 35 42 43
33

28 31 32 34

7 29 52 53 54 55

8 9 10 51
G G
First one is the outage of the line connected between bus-12 and bus-13, whose pre-
outage reactive power flow is 60.27 Mvar. Second case is the outage of a transformer
with turns ratio 0.895 connected between bus-13 and bus-49, whose pre-outage reactive
power flows is 33.7 Mvar.

Post-Outage Voltage Magnitudes for outage of the line connected between bus 12 and bus

Bus No Voltage magnitudes [p.u.] eV

pre-outage VPF VDF
13 0.979 0.955 0.953 0.0019
14 0.970 0.953 0.951 0.0018
20 0.964 0.955 0.953 0.0016
46 1.060 1.042 1.040 0.0023
47 1.033 1.016 1.014 0.0016
48 1.028 1.011 1.009 0.0020
49 1.036 1.019 1.017 0.0024
threshold error = 0.0015 p.u.
Post-Outage Reactive Power Flows for outage of the
line connected between bus 12 and bus 13
Reactive Power Flow [MVar]
Line pre-outage QPF QDF eQ
l-m Qlm Qml Qlm Qml Qlm Qml [MVar]

1-2 75.00 -84.12 74.84 -83.94 75.01 84.14 0.17 0.20

1-15 33.74 -23.95 45.29 -34.96 46.26 35.22 0.97 0.26
3-15 -18.26 13.73 0.54 -5.15 0.87 -5.26 0.33 0.11
50-51 -4.16 6.51 -9.43 9.92 -9.23 9.78 0.20 0.14
threshold error = 0.2 MVar.
Post-Outage Voltage Magnitudes for outage of the transformer
connected between bus 13 and bus 49
Bus No Voltage magnitudes [p.u.] eV
pre-outage VPF VDF
11 0.974 0.976 0.977 0.0011
13 0.979 0.985 0.987 0.0016
21 1.009 0.982 0.980 0.0017
48 1.028 0.997 0.995 0.0016
49 1.036 0.978 0.972 0.0056
50 1.024 0.980 0.977 0.0032
51 1.052 1.038 1.036 0.0018
threshold error = 0.0015 p.u.

Post-Outage Reactive Power Flows for outage of the transformer

connected between bus 12 and bus 13
Reactive Power Flow [MVar]
Line pre-outage QPF QDF eQ
l-m Qlm Qml Qlm Qml Qlm Qml [MVar]

3-15 -18.26 13.73 -15.59 11.01 -17.09 12.53 1.50 1.52

12-13 60.27 -64.01 52.49 -56.76 50.06 -54.46 2.43 2.30
15-45 -0.79 2.15 7.67 -5.67 9.33 -7.36 1.66 1.69
14-46 27.32 -25.39 42.82 -39.29 45.93 -42.24 3.11 2.95
47-48 12.36 -12.26 24.76 -24.41 22.71 -22.27 2.05 2.14
48-49 -7.40 6.95 5.93 -6.10 4.31 -4.20 1.62 1.90
50-51 -6.16 6.51 -13.25 14.53 -11.84 13.35 1.41 1.18
10-51 12.47 -11.81 21.06 -19.83 23.24 -21.98 2.18 2.15
threshold error = 1.0 MVar.