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Voltage collapse in complex power grids

Author

Listed:
  • John W. Simpson-Porco

    (Engineering Building 5, University of Waterloo)

  • Florian Dörfler

    (Automatic Control Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH))

  • Francesco Bullo

    (Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation, Engineering Building II, University of California at Santa Barbara)

Abstract

A large-scale power grid’s ability to transfer energy from producers to consumers is constrained by both the network structure and the nonlinear physics of power flow. Violations of these constraints have been observed to result in voltage collapse blackouts, where nodal voltages slowly decline before precipitously falling. However, methods to test for voltage collapse are dominantly simulation-based, offering little theoretical insight into how grid structure influences stability margins. For a simplified power flow model, here we derive a closed-form condition under which a power network is safe from voltage collapse. The condition combines the complex structure of the network with the reactive power demands of loads to produce a node-by-node measure of grid stress, a prediction of the largest nodal voltage deviation, and an estimate of the distance to collapse. We extensively test our predictions on large-scale systems, highlighting how our condition can be leveraged to increase grid stability margins.

Suggested Citation

  • John W. Simpson-Porco & Florian Dörfler & Francesco Bullo, 2016. "Voltage collapse in complex power grids," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms10790
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10790
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    Cited by:

    1. Ricciardi, Gianmarco & Montagna, Guido & Caldarelli, Guido & Cimini, Giulio, 2023. "Dimensional reduction of solvency contagion dynamics on financial networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 630(C).
    2. Wang, Yuexin & Sun, Zhongkui & Zhang, Hanqi & Zhou, Yining & Liu, Shutong & Xu, Wei, 2024. "Dynamic survivability of two-layer networks: The role of interlayer coupling," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    3. Robin Delabays & Saber Jafarpour & Francesco Bullo, 2022. "Multistability and anomalies in oscillator models of lossy power grids," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.

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