The Topological and Electrical Structure of Power Grids

Optimizing the Structure of Distribution Smart Grids with Renewable Generation against Abnormal Conditions: A Complex Networks Approach with Evolutionary Algorithms

“…However, the opposing community asserts that the pure topological CN approach loses the details of the physics behind Kirchhoff's laws and fails at predicting important aspects of power grids. In this respect, as mentioned, hybrid approaches include concepts from EE [82][83][84]96,[98][99][100][101][102]. Nonetheless, the CN approach with purely topological analysis (or even with extended ones to take into account minimal electrical information [34]) has been found to be useful to detect critical elements and to assess topological robustness [35,97,103].…”

“…For instance, the research in [72] points out that the U.S. western power grid seems to have a small-world network. However, the works by Cotilla-Sanchez et al [104] and Hines et al [100] show that (a) the explored power grid does not exhibit a small-world nature and that (b) a spatial approach to connectivity and distance fails in setting up a graph model representing the electrical properties of the grid. Furthermore, the research [80] suggested that the degree distribution of the power grid seemed to be scale-free following a power law distribution function, although not all of the subsequent works have agreed on this [33].…”

Visualizing the Electrical Structure of Power Systems

“…The recent work of Hines et al [22,33,43] as well as Bompard et al [27,44,45] points towards the role of internode electrical distance measures in elucidating the structural features of power systems. Earlier works have used electric distance measures in a number of roles: [46] introduced nodeto-node voltage attenuation distances and used them in identifying voltage control zones; [47] used the same in assessing system voltage security; [48] to partition a system into localized reactive power markets; [49] used impedance sub-matrices to relate load and generator voltages as a distance metric for transmission use-of-system charging; later, and seemingly independently, Abdelkader et al [50][51][52] used closely related sub-matrices for power flow tracing and loss allocation purposes.…”

“…The authors concluded: "there is a tremendous value to leveraging the existing visualization knowledge base to a field that has traditionally not expended significant resources in the area" This paper takes its cue from this exhortation, and also seeks to extend, and articulate, some recent results on electrical connectivity and centrality in empiric power systems. Electrical power systems can be viewed as undirected complex graphs; from this perspective [20], which disregards the physics of electrical power flow, various works [21][22][23][24][25] have sought to classify empiric power systems using such classic topological descriptors as node degree. While consensus has not always been reached, the state of the art allows the synthesis of artificial networks that resemble existing power systems in their topological structure [26].…”

Generating realistic Smart Grid communication topologies based on real-data

“…transmission lines or power plants. In [15] the authors study topological vulnerabilities of transmission systems of several European countries, while [16] focus on US transmission systems. The major similarity among these papers is that the power grid topology exhibits characteristics, which differ from random graphs, preferential attachment and small-world graphs.…”