Screening and Ranking of Contingency Cases
for Power System Security Analysis
Dr. Avdhesh Sharma
#
Professor
Department of Electrical,
MBM engineering College, Jodhpur (JNVU)
Rajasthan, India
avdheshmbm15@gmail.com
Er.vitthalpatnecha@gmail.com
Abstract: In this paper real time security analysis is
carried out. Contingency analysis is best method to
predict the condition of power system, if any
unwanted event occurred. Contingencies like
failures of equipments, transmission lines etc.
Practically only selected contingencies will lead to
severe conditions in power system like violation of
voltage and active power limits. The process of
identifying these severe contingencies is referred as
contingency selection and this can be done by
calculating performance indices for each
contingencies. There are two approaches of the
contingency selection process one is direct ranking
and second is Indirect (approximation based)
ranking. In this paper, the Direct and Indirect
contingency selection by calculating performance
indices i.e. voltage performance index (PIV) and
Power performance index (PIP) for single
transmission line outage have been done with the
help of MATLAB based programming. The
ranking of most severe contingency has been done
based on the values of performance index. In this
paper a newly performance index has been
proposed i.e. Power voltage Performance Index
(PIVP) The effectiveness of the method has been
tested on IEEE-118 and IEEE-14 bus test systems.
Most severe transmission line contingency can be
identified and compared based on their capture
ratio and CPU time. Results of study recommended
the best suitable method to implement in online
power system security checks in Power System.
Keywords —Power system security, Contingency
Analysis, Performance Index, Distribution factor,
Matlab Programming.
I. INTRODUCTION
Contingencies are defined as potentially harmful
disturbances that occur during the steady state
operation of a power system. Load flow constitutes
the most important study in a power system for
planning, operation and expansion. The purpose of
load flow study is to compute operating conditions
of the power system under steady state. These
operating conditions are normally voltage
magnitudes and phase angles at different buses, line
Vitthal Patnecha
Department of Electrical,
flow (MW and MVAR), real and reactive power
supplied by the generators and power loss.
In a modern Energy Management power system
security monitoring and analysis form an integral
part but the real time implementation is a
challenging task for the power system engineer. A
power system which is operating under normal mode
may face contingencies such as sudden loss of line
or generator, sudden increase or decrease of power
demand. These contingencies cause transmission
line overloading or bus voltage violations. In
electrical power systems voltage stability is
receiving special attention these days. During the
past two and half decades it has become a major
threat to the operation of many systems.
The transfer of power through a transmission
network is accompanied by voltage drops between
the generation and consumption points. In normal
operating conditions, these drops are of the order of
few percents of the nominal voltage. One of the
principle tasks of power system operators is to check
that under different operating conditions and/or
following credible contingencies (e.g.: tripping of a
single line) all bus voltages remain within bounds. In
such circumstances, however in the seconds or
minutes following a disturbance, voltages may
experience large progressive falls, which are so
prominent that the system integrity is endangered
and power cannot be delivered to the customers.
This catastrophe is referred to as voltage instability
and its calamitous result as a voltage collapse.
Large violations in transmission line flow can result
in line outage which may lead to cascading effect of
outages and cause over load on the other lines. If
such over load results from a line outage there is an
immediate need for the control action to be initiated
for line over load alleviation. Therefore contingency
analysis is one of the most important tasks to be met
by the power system planners and operation
engineers. But on line contingency analysis is
difficult because of the conflict between the
accuracy in solution of the power system problem
and the speed required to simulate all the
contingencies. The simulation of contingency is
complex since it results in change in configuration of
the system.
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A security analysis study which is run in an
operations center must be executed very quickly in
order to be of any use to operators. There are three
basic ways to accomplish this.
 Study the power system with approximate
but very fast algorithms.
 Select only the important cases for detailed
analysis.
 Use a computer system made up of multiple
processors or vector processors to gain
speed.
II. CONTINGENCY SELECTION
Since contingency analysis involves the simulation
of each contingency on the base case model of the
power system, three major difficulties are involved
in this analysis. First is the difficulty to develop the
appropriate power system model.
Second is the choice of which contingency case to
consider and third is the difficulty in computing the
power flow and bus voltages which leads to
enormous time consumption in the Energy
Management System. It is therefore apt to separate
the on-line contingency analysis into three different
stages namely contingency definition, selection and
evaluation.
Contingency definition comprises of the set of
possible contingencies that might occur in a power
system, it involves the process of creating the
contingency list. Contingency selection is a process
of identifying the most severe contingencies from
the contingency list that leads to limit violations in
the power flow and bus voltage magnitude, thus this
process eliminates the least severe contingencies and
shortens the contingency list. It uses some sort of
index calculations which indicates the severity of
contingencies. On the basis of the results of these
index calculations the contingency cases are ranked.
Contingency evaluation is then done which involves
the necessary security actions or necessary control to
function in order to mitigate the effect of
contingency.
III. APPROACHES OF CONTINGENCY SELECTION
If it is necessary to know a power system’s MVA
flows and bus voltage magnitudes after a
contingency outage, then some form of complete AC
power flow must be used. This presents a great deal
of difficulty when thousands of cases must be
checked. It is simply impossible, even on the fastest
processors in existence today (1995) to execute
thousands of complete AC power flows quickly
enough. Fortunately, this need not be done as most
of the cases result in power flow results which do
not have flow or voltage limit violations. What is
needed are ways to eliminate all or most of the non-
violation cases and only run complete power flows
on the “critical” cases. These techniques go under
the names of “contingency selection” or
“contingency screening”.
A. Direct Approaches (Contingency Ranking)
These involve direct ranking of the contingency
cases. Fast approximate power flow simulation of
each contingency case by monitoring the appropriate
post-contingent quantities (flow, voltage).The case’s
severity can be quantify directly in some severity for
ranking purposes. The severity measures in often a
single number, the severity or performance index.
1. Power Performance Index:
An index for quantifying the extent of line overloads
may be defined in terms (PIp) a real power
performance index:
Where
= The megawatt flow of line i
= The megawatt capacity of line i
NL= the number of line in the system
N= specified exponent (n=1)
W=Weightage factor (1)
The performance index PIMW contains all line
flows by their limits. The index PIMW has a small
value, when all line flows are within their limits and
a high value when there are line overloads. This, it
provides a good measure of the severity of line
overloads for a given state of the power system.
2. Voltage Performance Index:
The voltage level performance index chosen to
quantify system deficiency due to out-of-limit
voltage is defined by –
Where
|Vi|= Voltage magnitude at bus i
|ViSP|= Specified (rated) Voltage magnitude at bus (i)
∆ViLim= Voltage deviation limit (i)
NB= Number of buses in the system
W= Weightage Factor
3. Power-Voltage Performance Index:
The Traditional Ranking methods provide us the
contingency ranking based on voltage performance
index (PIV) and the Active Power Performance index
(PIP). Both the ranking indices provide us different
ranking, which increase the complexity in ranking
However, both increase/ decrease in voltage and
increase in power flow are serious issues in the
interconnected power system. Here a new modified
ranking method is proposed, in which both the
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ranking methods are involved and the ranking is
performed on Voltage-Power Performance index,
which provides the ranking of overall critical
contingency it can be justified the best ranking
method.
Therefore a new voltage-power performance index
(PIVP) is defined as
Where
NB= no. of Buses in the system
NL=no. of Line in the system
n= specified exponent (n=1)
= Weightage Factor (W=1)
= post-outage bus voltage magnitude at bus-i
= Voltage deviation limit
= The megawatt flow of line i
= The megawatt capacity of line i
The contingency can be ranked depending on the
importance of a line. If it is desired not to overload a
particular line, then that line weightage is assigned a
high value.
Fig.1.1 Flow Chart for the Direct Contingency
selection
The purpose of this project is to develop an static
security in power system. Critical contingency
screening and ranking is carried out for different line
outages using MiPower and the prediction of the
security state for a particular operating condition as
well as screening and ranking is based on the PIV
and PIF. Here PIF & PIV are calculated by
considering the outage of only one line sequentially
and the calculated indices.
B. Indirect Approaches (Contingency Screening)
The method has been in use for many years and
goes under various names such as “D factor
methods,” “linear sensitivity methods,” “DC power
flow methods,” etc. This approach is useful if one
only desires an approximate analysis of the effect of
each outage. It has all the limitations attributed to the
DC power flow; that is, only branch MW flows are
calculated and these are only within about 5%
accuracy. There is no knowledge of MVAR flows or
bus voltage magnitudes.
The problem of studying thousands of possible
outages becomes very difficult to solve if it is
desired to present the results quickly. One of the
easiest ways to provide a quick calculation of
possible overloads is to use linear sensitivity factors.
These factors show the approximate change in line
flows for changes
1. Line Outage Distribution Factor
2. Generator Outage Distribution Factor
In order to observe the effect of the line outage,
the line outage distribution factors are being
assessed. This factor is being computed using the
injection shift factors (ISFs), which are the building
blocks of the other distribution factors. To shift the
extra power being transferred on the factors are
being computed. The advantage of these distribution
factors is that since it is linear, quick computation is
enabled and is therefore widely used in security
studies. Also, since it is linear, superposition is
possible where different transactions can be
superimposed onto each other. These factors
however vary with the change in the topology, when
an outage occurs and when there are change in the
loadings on the lines in the system. This would
require a formulation of the factors so that we would
be able to compute these factors at any loading
conditions.
This method have several assumptions; first, it
assumes that the generator output for each of the
generators in the system is available and that the line
flow for each transmission line in the network is also
available. Second, it assumes that the sensitivity
factors have been calculated and stored, and that
they are correct. The assumption that the generation
and line flow MWs are available can be satisfied
with telemetry systems or with state estimation
techniques. The assumption that the sensitivity
factors are correct is valid as long as the
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transmission network has not undergone any buses and 186 transmission lines. Here we Perform
significant switching operations that would change Contingency Ranking with both direct and indirect
its structure. For this reason, control systems that use approaches on a 118-bus system for 30-cases of
sensitivity factors must have provision for updating transmission line outages. Two indices are taken for
the factors when the network is switched. A third ranking of contingencies they are PIV and PIP,
assumption is that all generation pickup will be based on the above mentioned indices the overall
made on the reference bus. contingency rank is obtained. Here DC load flow
and FDLF (Fast Decouple load flow) used; New
Software called Mi-Power with FDFL used for
IV. CASE STUDY ranking. At the later stage the results are compared
with the MATLAB results.
IEEE-118 bus system has been modeled in
Mipower software, which consists of 54 generator
The Problem of studying thousand of possible Case Study-1: Contingency Analysis for Security
outages becomes very difficult to solve if it is Checks of IEEE-14 Bus System:
desired to present the results quickly. One of the
easiest ways to provide a quick calculation of
possible overloads is to use linear sensitivity factors.
These factors show the approximate changes in line
flow for changes in generation on the network
configuration and are derived from the dc load flow.
However change in bus voltage and change line
flows may also consider for defining performance
index in direct ranking method. For comparative
analysis point of view, a distribution factor based
indirect ranking approach has also been applied to
the interconnected power system.
Table 1:Performance Index using Different Ranking
technique

FDLF DC Load Flow Distribution Factor PIVP

Con. No From To
PIP Rank PIV Rank PIP Rank PIP Rank PIVP Rank
1 1 2 1.2028 7 1.7369 16 1.028 19 1.1884 19 2.9397 15
2 1 5 2.0347 1 1.853 11 1.806 1 2.0324 1 3.8877 1
3 2 3 1.797 2 1.8524 12 1.618 2 1.7884 2 3.6494 3
4 2 4 1.2683 5 1.8104 13 1.173 5 1.3245 5 3.0787 10
5 2 5 1.1575 13 1.8795 9 1.07 14 1.2134 16 3.037 12
6 3 4 1.2451 6 1.9917 2 1.15 6 1.2964 6 3.2368 5
7 4 5 1.4855 4 1.7888 14 1.353 4 1.5298 4 3.2743 4
8 4 7 1.1429 18 1.9406 5 1.061 17 1.2356 8 3.0835 9
9 4 9 1.2012 8 1.9014 7 1.125 7 1.2889 7 3.1026 7
10 5 6 1.5547 3 2.1953 1 1.422 3 1.6026 3 3.75 2
11 6 11 1.1654 10 1.6935 17 1.086 9 1.2276 12 2.8589 17
12 6 12 1.1599 12 1.7741 15 1.081 10 1.2244 13 2.934 16
13 6 13 1.1793 9 1.542 19 1.092 8 1.2337 10 2.7213 19
14 7 9 1.1461 16 1.6365 18 1.061 18 1.2356 9 2.7826 18
15 9 10 1.1411 19 1.8856 8 1.063 16 1.2106 18 3.0267 13
16 9 14 1.1615 11 1.9522 4 1.08 11 1.2282 11 3.1137 6
17 10 11 1.1511 15 1.9164 6 1.074 13 1.216 14 3.0675 11
18 12 13 1.144 17 1.9568 3 1.068 15 1.2113 17 3.1008 8
19 13 14 1.152 14 1.8701 10 1.074 12 1.2155 15 3.0221 14

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Case-2 Contingency Analysis for Security Checks of
IEEE-118 Bus System
V. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Based on the time comparison and ranking
between all the ranking methods shown in table 1,
using FDFL load flow technique will be the best
suitable method for the power system security
checks and can be implemented while using on-line
security checks. Because other ranking provides
both the voltage and power performance index with
minimum time and results are acceptable accurate as
shown in table 1, But here one drawback with is that
we cannot perform ranking with DC load flow in it
and the time provided with the software was not that
much precise.
In the Line outage distribution factor based
ranking using DC load flow having disadvantage
that it can only be useful if the operator wants to
know the Power performance index only, the
distribution factor based approximation method is
suitable for the security checks only. So for only
security checks the DF (Distribution factor) based
method is recommended. If Power System Operator
have low version of computer for analysis and wants
to check the security then DF is most suitable. But if
we have fast or higher version of computers
available like windows7/10 with i5process (which is
minimum required to run the Mi-Power software)
then Mi-Power based ranking would be the best way
to check the system Pre-defined contingency ranking
and security.
CPU Time Comparison of Contingency Selection and Ranking
Methods
Time Taken
S.No (in sec.)
Method used with Software
. IEEE-118
Bus system
1 Mipower-(Direct Performance Index) 0.01
MATLAB- Indirect method (Distribution
2 0.069324
Factor method )
MATLAB-DC (Direct Performance
3 1.223871
Index)
MATLAB-AC-FLDC (Direct
4 1.428645
Performance Index)
CONCLUSION
The study has been carried out for the
contingency selection and ranking which are
important for contingency analysis by evaluating
two Performance indices namely: Voltage
Performance indices (PIV) and Overload/Power
Performance indices (PIP). These indices are
calculated for IEEE 14-bus, IEEE 118-bus using the
Fast Decoupled Load Flow (FDLF) with MATLAB
and Mi-Power Software and Distribution Factor
method by MATLAB programming and results are
compared and recommend the best suitable method
for the contingency ranking for power system
security checks.
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