1
Optimization of Generation Shedding Allocation
for BC Grid Security Enhancement
Ziwen Yao, Senior Member, IEEE, Qing Zhu
Abstract: Generation shedding is one of the most effective and
commonly used corrective actions to mitigate insecurity of power
systems under large disturbances. This paper presents the
implementation of an optimization scheme for generation
shedding allocation within an EMS system using integer
programming. The approach allows addressing at the same time,
various security concerns including thermal limit violation,
transient instability, and voltage instability taking into account
distribution factors of plants in different locations, which
contribute differently to security enhancement. The optimization
scheme can receive security enhancement requirements from
various sources, such as online DSA (Dynamic Security
Assessment), offline planning study and manual input.
Keywords—generation shedding, corrective actions,
preventive actions, generation tripping, generation dumping,
linear programming, security enhancement, RAS, remedial
action schemes, transient stability, voltage stability, NP-complete,
knapsack problem, optimization
I. NOMENCLATURE
Ppl max(j): MW rating of plant j;
Ppl rdc(j): Total MW generation reduction at plant j;
C(i): Total MW armed for generation shedding (or
generation reduction) for contingency i; as cost
function of the optimization scheme.
dfj: Distribution factor of plant j;
σSER(i,k): kth Security Enhancement Requirement in MW
for contingency i;
SERi(k): kth Security Enhancement Requirement in MW
for contingency i; (interchangeable with
σSER(i,k));
Dush_max(i): Dush_max(i) is the maximum Under-SHedding
amount in MW within all security enhancement
requirements for contingency i
Pun(j,m): MW output of unit m at plant j;
Pmax(j,m): MW rating of unit m at plant j;
Dush(i,k): Dush(i,k) is the Under-SHedding amount in
MW for the kth security enhancement
requirement for contingency i;
S(j,m): Shedding factor (0: no shed; 1: shed) of unit m
at plant j;
Ziwen Yao is with BC Hydro, Vancouver, BC, Canada (e-mail:
Michael.Yao@bchydro.com).
Qing Zhu is with BC Hydro, Vancouver, BC, Canada (e-mail:
Qing.Zhu@bchydro.com)).
978-1-4673-2729-9/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
GR Generation Reduction
GS or
Generation Shedding
Genshed
CTG Contingency
RAS Remedial Action Scheme
EMS Energy Management System
II. INTRODUCTION
R EMDIAL action schemes (RAS) are widely used in
power systems to enhance power system security [1-3],
which involve various types of corrective actions, such as
generation shedding, line tripping and shunt switching.
According to the security problems including transient
stability, voltage stability and thermal limit violation, the
corrective actions would be different combinations of those
types of actions. Among them, generation shedding is one of
the most commonly used and effective actions to enhance
power system security of various types after severe system
disturbances. Hence, this note will be focused on the
discussion of optimization for generation shedding allocation,
which consists in allocating the total generation shedding
amount required for a particular contingency to units of
different plants that are associated with the contingency in the
RAS schemes. In particular, the optimization formulation of
the generation shedding will be discussed in detail for both
under shedding and over shedding scenarios. In general,
under-shedding is caused by certain conflicts between
requirements for shedding amount and the number of units
online for post-contingency systems. From system planning
study point of view, under-shedding is not allowed and the
conflicts shall be resolved as soon as possible to remove
under-shedding. However, under-shedding can happen in real-
time operations and implementation of the solution to remove
under-shedding may take sometimes. Therefore, the
generation shedding allocation scheme has to take into
account the scenarios of under-shedding when providing RAS
arming patterns. It is worth noting that “under-shedding”
discussed in this paper is relative to the shedding requirements
based on the system performance assessment from either off-
line planning study or online DSA. The discussion on how to
establish the shedding requirements is beyond the scope of
this paper.
In real-time operations, one particular disturbance may
cause multiple security problems, which requires one set of
generation shedding to address all the security problems. At

the same time, undesired impacts of generation shedding on
the post-contingency systems shall be minimized as much as
possible. Therefore, certain optimization technique shall be
used to set up the generation shedding arming pattern to
resolve potential conflicts between different requirements of
insecurity mitigation.
In reality, since genshed is a discrete control action, the
actual total MW of units armed for shedding for a contingency
is seldom exactly the same as required and will be either
under-shedding or over-shedding according to shedding
requirements. On one hand, under-shedding cannot mitigate
the problems as required, thus it shall be avoided as much as
possible; on the other hand, however, too much over-shedding
may reduce the capability of meeting the load demand and/or
voltage control capability of regions where the number of
online units in post-contingency system is insufficient, thus
risking voltage limit violation and / or self-excitation of
remaining generating units after heavy generation shedding
that will reduce significantly loading on the remaining
transmission lines.
Therefore, the generation shedding arming patterns must be
calculated diligently using robust optimization processes,
which shall be able to resolve all insecurity issues caused by
contingencies, on one hand; and shall not create new
insecurity problems, such as unit self-excitation and voltage
limit violations, on the other hand. Also, it shall maximize
power supply to the post contingency systems.
British Columbia (BC) Hydro has installed massive RAS
schemes in BC grid to enhance its security against various
credible contingencies. Many of these schemes address single
security concern, such as transient stability or thermal limit
violation on single equipment, which is modeled as single
constraint in the optimization formulation for genshed
allocation. And many of them are designed to mitigate
overloading on multiple devices, voltage instability and
transient instability. Therefore, multiple constraints shall be
taken into account in genshed allocation optimization
processes to address multiple security issues caused by each
contingency.
This note presents an implementation of integer
programming within an EMS system, which calculates the
generation shedding arming patterns subject to multiple
constraints in real-time for the bulk power systems of BC
Hydro.
III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
In a typical bulk power system as illustrated in Figure 1, in
occurrence of a contingency of losing L1_2, the remaining
devices such as L3_5, L5_7, and T7_9 may be overloaded and
units in plant 4 may become transient instable depending on
the pre-outage system conditions. In the case when the
contingency causes insecurity problem to the system,
generation shedding is one of the most effective corrective
actions to mitigate the problem. However, we shall answer the
following two basic questions among other things when
setting up the generation shedding arming patterns:
2
1) What the security enhancement amount required for each
security concern would be needed to mitigate the problem.
In the case of thermal limit violation, the amount of
overloading plus some margin will be the security
enhancement amount required. If the contingency can
cause multiple security problems; multiple security
enhancement amounts are required.
2) How these multiple security enhancement amounts can be
allocated to units for shedding that are associated with the
contingency in the RAS scheme. According to the location
of a unit, its contribution of the MW shed to a particular
security enhancement will be a portion of its total MW
shed, which is modeled as distribution factor (greater than
0.0 and less than 1.0) of the unit (or the plant assuming
that all units in the plant are electrically in the same
location).
4 16 6 8
3
9
2
5 7
20 19 10
1 ∞
12
∞
15 11
18 17
13
14
Figure 1: System studied
Given the security enhancement amount required and
distribution factors of units associated with the contingencies,
among other things, the basic requirements for “optimal”
generation shedding allocations are as follows:
a) Meet all security enhancement requirements as much as
possible;
b) Keep as much as possible power supply online after
generation shedding to meet the load demand for the post-
contingency systems;
c) Prevent as much as possible the post-contingency system
from new insecurity problems potentially caused by
generation shedding. The potential insecurity problems
caused by generation shedding would be i) unit self-
excitation and ii) loss of voltage support. To prevent these
two problems, the requirement of “keep a minimum
number of units online” can be specified as a constraint
 3

input for the optimization process of generation shedding where,

allocation. C(i) is the total MW reduced for contingency i;
Solution for resolving potential conflicts between min(Dush_max(i)) is the minimum Dush_max(i) within all possible
generation shedding required for mitigating insecurity and combinations of plants contributing to
undesired impacts of generation shedding is to specify generation reduction.
correctly the objective function and constraints for the hi is the number of potential security problems
optimization processes. to be mitigated for contingency i;
If the conflict cannot be resolved by the corrective actions, dfj is the distribution factor of plant j;
preventive actions will be specified. However, detailed Ppl rdc(j) is the MW reduction at plant j;
discussion on how to resolve the conflict is a system or Ppl max(j) is the MW rating of plant j;
operation planning issue, which is beyond the scope of the σSER(i,k) is kth Security Enhancement Requirement in
MW for contingency i;
paper.
Dush(i,k) is the Under-SHedding amount in MW for
In the current implementation of generation shedding, the
the kth security enhancement requirement for
input for the allocation function is the security enhancement
contingency i;
requirements in MW that may be provided by security Dush_max(i) is the maximum Under-SHedding amount in
assessment studies either online or offline. MW within all security enhancement
This section will present the problem formulation in two requirements for contingency i, which is
steps: resulting from one combination of plants
1) Formulation of optimization for generation reduction contributing to generation reduction.
assuming unit generation could be reduced to desired level
without time delay, which is ideal to mitigate any security The objective function, Min [C(i) |min(Dush_max(i))] is to
problems as a continual control action. minimize the total MW to be reduced within the minimum
Even though generation reduction is not the actual action Dush_max(i) within all possible combinations of plants
taken by RAS schemes, the formulation of such a continual
contributing to generation reduction.
control action is helpful in describing the requirements and
Obviously, it is a typical linear programming problem.
constraints for the optimization processes and illustrating
However, it will not result in a generation shedding arming
the issues of over-shedding and under-shedding.
2) Formulation of optimization for generation shedding pattern yet, which will be discussed in the next section.
modeled as a discrete control action, which is the actual Figures 2 and 3 depict the feasibility of the optimization
action that RAS schemes take in real-time operations. processes. In real-time operations, two cases of under-
shedding are slightly different. In case I (Figure 3-a), the MW
A. Optimization for Generation Reduction output of Plant 4 and Plant 6 can be simply reduced to 0 to
Before presenting the formulation of “optimization for minimize the under-shedding and reach the minimum C(i);
generation shedding”, this section is to give the general whereas, in case II (Figure 3-b), reducing the MW output of
formulation for the problem of generation reduction that is not Plant 4 from A to B does not help reduce further under-
involving shedding individual unit. And the generation shedding, hence the MW output of Plant 4 can be kept online
reduction allocation can be formulated in a set of linear for post-contingency systems to supply load demand.
equations of constraints and an optimization objective
function as shown in Eq. (1). Ppl rdc(4) SER1(5)
SER1(4)

Ppl max(4
Min [C(i) |min(Dush_max(i)] (1.1)
SER1(2) SER1(3)
Subject to:
n Feasible
(1.2)
∑ (df
j
j ⋅ Ppl _ rdc ( j )) ≥ σ SER (i, k ) Zone

k = 1, …, hi;
0 ≤ df j ≤ 1, SER1(1) C”(i)

C’(i)
0 ≤ Ppl _ rdc ( j ) ≤ Ppl _ max ( j ),
n
C (i) = ∑ ( Ppl _ rdc ( j ))
j

Dush _ max (i ) = max( Dush (i, k )), k = 1,..., hi

C(i)
Dush (i, k ) =
i
n
t

Ppl rdc(6)

⎧0, th
k constra of Eq.(1.2) Ppl_max(6
⎪⎪ is satisfied
⎨ n
[SERi(k): Eq. (1.2)]
⎪σ SER (i, k ) − ∑ (df j ⋅ Ppl _ rdc ( j )) > 0, otherwise
Figure 2: Over-Shedding is feasible
⎪⎩ j
 4

Ppl_rdc(4)
SER1(5)
1) Minimize the total MW armed for shedding when over-
SER1(2)
shedding is feasible;
SER1(1) 2) Minimize under-shedding if over-shedding is infeasible
and maximize power supply for post-contingency systems;
Feasible
Ppl_max(4 Zone
Min [C(i) |min(Dush_max(i))] (2.1)

Subject to:
n nj

∑ (df ⋅ ∑ S ( j, m) ⋅ P
j =1
j
m =1
un ( j , m)) ≥ σ SER (i, k ) (2.2)

k = 1, …, hi;
C(i) 0 ≤ df j ≤ 1,
⎧0, if unit m of plant j is not armed
S ( j , m) = ⎨
SER1(4) ⎩1, if unit m of plant j is armed
SER1(3)
0 ≤ Pun ( j , m) ≤ Pun _ max ( j , m),
n nj
C (i ) = ∑∑ S ( j , m) ⋅ Pun ( j , m)
Ppl_max(6) Ppl_rdc(6)

[SERi(k): Eq. (1.2)] j =1 m =1

Figure 3-a: Under-Shedding Case I

where,
The solution of this standard linear programming problem Dush _ max (i) = max( Dush (i, k )), k = 1,..., hi
for generation reduction (GR) will provide an amount of MW
to be reduced for every plant involved. Dush (i, k ) =
However, the RAS schemes can only trip a combination of ⎧0, k th constra int of Eq. (2.2)
⎪⎪ is satisfied
online units armed to be shed, the total MW of which may not ⎨ n nj

match exactly the desired generation reduction. ⎪σ SER (i, k ) − ∑ ( df j ⋅ ∑ S ( j , m) ⋅ Pun ( j , m)), otherwise
⎪⎩ j =1 m =1
Hence, the general linear programming formulation will be
C(i)
is the total MW armed for generation
modified to an integer programming or a typical knapsack
shedding for contingency i;
problem presented in the next section.
min(Dush_max(i)) is the minimum Dush_max(i) within all
Ppl_rdc(4) possible combinations of units contributing
SER1(2)
C”(i)
to generation shedding.
C’(i)
hi is the number of potential security problems
B
Ppl_max(4) to be mitigated for contingency i;
dfj is the distribution factor of plant j;
Pun(j,m) is the MW output of unit m at plant j;
Pmax(j,m) is the MW rating of unit m at plant j;
SER1(1)
S(j,m) is the shedding factor (0: no shed; 1: shed)
Feasible
A Zone of unit m at plant j;
σSER(i,k) is kth Security Enhancement Requirement in
MW for contingency i;
Dush(i,k) is the Under-SHedding amount in MW for
the kth security enhancement requirement for
contingency i;
Dush_max(i) is the maximum Under-SHedding amount in
C(i)
MW within all security enhancement
requirements for contingency i;
Ppl_max(6) Ppl_rdc(6)
The objective function, Min [C(i) |min(Dush_max(i))] is to
[SERi(k): Eq. (1.2)] minimize the total MW to be shed within the minimum
Figure 3-b: Under-Shedding Case II
Dush_max(i) of all possible combinations of units arming for
B. Optimization for Generation Shedding generation shedding.
Unlike generation reduction, generation shedding is a
discrete control action that can only determine whether a unit IV. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM
is armed for genshed or not. The optimization algorithm is implemented in BC Hydro’s
The general objective of the optimization processes for EMS to set up generation shedding arming patterns in real-
generation shedding allocation is to reach the following goals, time, which are automatically updated every 4 minutes.
which are formulated as Eq.(2):
 5

Figure 4 illustrates the functional diagram of the In the implementation, when preparing the list of candidate
optimization program of iteration for one contingency. The units, the pre-processing module eliminates the unsheddable
entire generation shedding allocation process will go through units that are in synchronous condenser mode or generating
all the contingencies within the installed RAS schemes. close to zero MW output, in ramping mode, or being disabled
manually by operators for any operation reasons.
Furthermore, a pre-defined tolerance (d0 – see Figure 4)
Begin of
contingency i can be used in the optimization process to increase the chance
of early stop without exhausting all possible combinations.
Database of
Database of Initialization:
Candidate
In addition, the following constraints are also taken into
Security Dmin, Cmin, d0…
Enhancement Units account in EMS implementation:
Requirements Participating in • Alignment of armed units within a group of contingencies:
Related Data Generation
Input Data: SENHi(k), Figure 5 shows an arming pattern that respects this
dfi, candidate units
requirement. In this example, units 5 and 6 of plant 16
armed for different contingencies. This is to avoid
Calculate Dush(i, k) for all k and Dush_max(i), C(i) for
one combination of units armed that respects the
unnecessary heavy over-shedding in case of potential
requirement of keeping minimum number of units multiple contingencies within a group even though the
online after generation shedding. probability of such multiple contingencies is extremely
low.
• Preserve the previous arming pattern as much as possible
Y
|Dush_max(i)| < to reduce frequent changes of arming patterns: this is to
Next Combination

N
avoid massive arming data being transferred back and forth
between control center and substation RTUs, thus to
> =
Dush_max(i) < Dmin improve the communication performance.
?
N
< These two requirements are modeled as weighting factors
Early Stop

C(i)

Store optimal combination and set assigned to unit generation in the objective function C(i).
Y
Dmin = Dush max(i), Cmin = C(i) However, a detailed discussion on those topics is beyond the
scope of the paper.

N Last combination of V. CASE STUDY

units armed?
Y of the system are illustrated in table 1 and initial generations
Begin of N
Last CTG?
Next CTG
Y voltage dip and thermal overloading. This scheme is a small
Output generation shedding allocation
results with the optimal combination
Figure 4: Flow chart of generation shedding allocation optimization for
contingency i
As the data input to the optimization process, the security
enhancement requirements may come from various sources,
such as offline planning study, online security assessment
(DSA) study or manual input so long as these inputs respect
the standard format of data requirements as shown in Table 3.
It is well known that the knapsack problem is NP-complete
(i.e., intractable) [5-6], the size of which is the number of
units (N) participating in generation shedding in the context of
generation shedding allocations. The complexity of the
problem is 2N. Thus, the complexity of generation shedding
allocation increases exponentially with the number of units,
which may lead to combinational explosion, thus affect the
real-time performance of the optimization program.
The test system is shown in Figure 1, the power flow data
of the online units are presented in table 2. Fifteen credible
contingencies are considered in planning study, which can
cause security problems, such as, transient stability, transient
Database of
Generation portion of the BC Hydro RAS system.
Shedding Arming Without losing generality, in this section, a typical case of
Patterns
overloading mitigation is presented to show the results of
optimization of generation shedding allocation (“w/GS”),
which are compared with the results of generation reduction
(“w/GR”) and no corrective action (“no RAS”).
Table 3 shows the security enhancement requirements,
which are calculated in EMS based on the rules and formula
provided by off-line planning study. The amount of security
enhancement is required for all associated plants to provide
taking into account their distribution factors in order to ensure
the security of the post-contingency system. The distribution
factor of a plant is the ratio of the actual MW contribution of
the plant to the amount of the security enhancement to the
actual generation shedding amount of the plant, which can be
also defined as a sensitivity of the plant’s generation shedding
to the security enhancement required.
For operators’ information, arming patterns as a matrix
format and a summary of generation shedding amount are
displayed in EMS user interface as shown in Figure 5.
 6

An example of the summary of generation shedding Theoretically, with generation reduction (GR), the thermal
amount is illustrated in Table 4, which is extracted from figure overloading on L2-19 is relieved exactly just below its rating;
5. On column “Shed Total”, “[L2-20]” is the indication of the whereas generation shedding (GS) with over-shedding
dominant security concern that is thermal overloading the line relieves the overloading slightly more than GR.
L2-20 in this case.
Table 2: Unit MW of pre/post-contingency systems
Table 1: Power flow of the system studied Basecase GR GS
Basecase Post- Post- Post- Plant-4 MW MVAr MW MW MVAr
Branch CTG CTG CTG MVA G1 52.00 10.29 35.00 52.00 10.29
G2 52.00 8.66 35.00 52.00 8.66
(FRM- MW no RAS w/GR w/GS
G3 52.00 9.77 34.00 52.00 9.77
TO) MVAr MW MW MW G4 52.00 11.36 34.00 52.00 11.36
MVAr MVAr MVAr Plant-16
L1-2 -176.67 0 0 0 G5 76.50 4.09 59.00 0.00 0.00
(CTG) 75.30 0 0 0 G6 76.50 0.00 59.00 0.00 0.00
L2-20 0 0 0 0 G7 76.50 9.11 59.00 76.50 9.11
(Outage) 0 0 0 0 G8 76.50 7.44 59.00 76.50 7.44
L2-19 200.46 287.89 229.13 221.18 230.0 Plant-6
-2.39 -8.97 -6.74 -10.59 G1 65.88 -5.60 65.88 65.88 -5.60
L15-20 37.27 168.28 37.15 37.14 G2 63.78 2.91 63.78 63.78 2.91
11.83 -12.83 11.71 11.70 G3 17.94 0.68 17.94 17.94 0.68
L19-15 222.45 307.12 250.29 242.57 Plant-8
-10.95 -37.43 -19.26 -20.30 G1 60.22 -18.51 60.22 60.22 -18.51
L15-18 142.05 36.95 155.69 151.85
-17.65 11.53 -21.46 -21.13
As the input to the optimization process, the original
L15-17 134.73 152.06 145.59 142.52
-2.15 86.18 -4.86 -4.71 “Amount required for security enhancement” from off-line
L18-14 104.94 145.72 118.25 114.53 planning study is in a formula format involving the power
-28.87 -51.80 -35.05 -34.08 flow variables of related transmission lines and unit
L17-14 44.71 76.28 55.01 52.18 generation, which is defined in a system operating order. In
-42.60 -58.34 -46.77 -46.14
L4-3 199.16 198.94 133.99 199.10 EMS, the actual amount required for the security enhancement
-16.20 3.71 12.25 -10.18 presented in Table 3 is calculated in real-time every 4 minutes
L16-3 304.70 304.67 235.27 152.34 using the formula and state estimation solution.
-53.17 -33.07 -35.95 -23.33
L3-5 139.44 225.99 153.95 144.56
-13.31 -16.68 -12.45 -17.15 Table 3: Security enhancement requirements
L6-5 145.80 145.77 145.80 145.79 No. Security Amount df df df df
-18.41 -7.42 -16.91 -15.98 Concern required for plant plant plant plant
L5-7 284.34 369.37 298.66 289.39 security 4 16 6 8
-28.53 -35.83 -28.06 -30.78 enhancement
L8-7 25.88 25.91 25.88 25.89 1 L2-19 O/L 59.9 MW 0.43 0.43 0.28 0
-41.45 -32.28 -40.03 -39.76 2 Transient 80.0 MW 1.0 1.0 0 0
L9-10 307.82 391.11 321.88 312.77
-59.23 -84.49 -61.27 -61.63 The result of the generation shedding allocation is
L10-11 153.45 236.94 167.63 158.65
-126.03 -159.70 -129.24 -128.78
presented in a matrix format shown in figure 5, which assigns
L13-11 -235.89 -253.57 -235.24 -232.72 the units to be tripped for the corresponding contingency.
21.55 31.54 21.14 20.87
T3-2 364.46 277.58 215.28 206.92
-54.07 -10.96 -9.61 -14.48
T7-9 308.21 391.76 322.31 313.17
-42.78 -57.00 -43.21 -44.52
T12-11 -266.64 -202.42 -251.43 -257.51
-171.44 -200.08 -175.08 -174.13

From the perspective of generation shedding allocation, if

the generation shedding requirement for a security concern is
met by a generation shedding arming pattern and the of
requirements of any other concerns can be met, then the first
security concern is defined as “dominant security concern”.
Without losing generality in terms of optimization of
generation shedding allocation, power flow resulted from GR
(Generation Reduction), GS (Generation Shedding) for
relieving thermal overloading are compared with post-
contingency power flow without RAS.
Figure 5: Generation shedding arming pattern
 7

Also, the major difference between GS and GR is the [3] Moshref, A.; Henville, C., Curtis, R., Morison, K., Albassam, L.,
Owayedh, M., El Said, O., Ashiq, M., “Design of a special protection
number of units kept online for post-contingency system, system to maintain system security at high import”, Power Engineering
which is most important for the post-contingency system to Society General Meeting, 2003, IEEE Vol. 1, 13-17 July 2003, p.319.
have enough voltage support. [4] Van Cutsem, T., Moors, C., Lefebvre, D., “Design of load shedding
schemes against voltage instability using combinatorial optimization”,
Power Engineering Society Winter Meeting, 2002. IEEE, Vol. 2, 27-31
Table 4: Arming pattern extracted from Figure 5 Jan. 2002, pp. 848 – 853.
Plant 4 Plant 16 Plant 6 Plant 8
CTG Shed SENH Actual df / df / df / df /
[5] A. J. Orman and H. P. Williams, “A Survey of Different Integer
Total Require SENH TTL TTL TTL TTL Programming Formulations of the Travelling Salesman Problem,” in
-ment Amount 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 1 Optimisation, Econometric and Financial Analysis, C. Gatu and E.
153.0 Kontoghiorghes, Eds. New York: Springer, 2006, vol. 9.
L1-2 59.9 65.8 0.43 / 0.43 / 0.28 / 0.0 /
[L2-20] 0.0 153.0 0.0 0.0 [6] D. L. Applegate, R. E. Bixby, V. Chvatal, and W. J. Cook, The Traveling
: indicating unit being armed; : indicating unit being disarmed; TTL: Salesman Problem: A Computational Study. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Total MW to be shed at the plant; SENH: Security Enhancement; [L2-20]: University Press, 2006.
dominant security concern which is overloading L2-20 in the case study.

VI. CONCLUSIONS VIII. BIOGRAPHIES

Ziwen Yao (M’94–SM’95) obtained his B.S., M.S. and PhD. in electrical
This paper presents an optimization algorithm of engineering respectively, from the North China Electric Power University
generation shedding allocation for BC power grid security (NCEPU); the Beijing Graduate School of NCEPU and Polytechnic Institute
enhancement, which is implemented in the control center’s of Lorraine, Nancy, France. From 1984 to 2001, he worked respectively for
Wuhan University, China, EDF (Electricité de France), University of Quebec
EMS. In order to drive the optimization processes of at Trois-Rivières, TEQSIM-Hydro Quebec, SNC-Lavalin in the areas of
generation shedding allocation to meet the requirements of power quality, power system stability analysis and control, real-time
mitigating security problems caused by contingencies and simulation of power systems, EMS. In 2001, he joined BC Hydro/BC
Transmission Corporation as a senior engineer. Dr. Ziwen Yao is also a
without creating new security problems for post-contingency registered professional engineer of APEG in British Columbia, Canada.
systems, the objective function and constraints are designed to
cover all potential security issues caused by contingencies and Qing Zhu obtained his B. Eng from North China Electric Power University
(NCEPU) in 1996 and B.S. from Simon Fraser University in 2002. He worked
at the same time, ensure security and maximum loadability for for NARI Relays Electric Co., China before joining BCTC in 2003 supporting
the post-contingency systems. It worth noting that the real-time EMS network applications.
generation shedding requirement as the data input of the
optimization process is provided by power system
performance study (either off-line or online).
In the definitions of the objective function and constraints,
both over-shed and under-shed system conditions shall be
taken into account even though under-shed is undesirable. In
real-time operations, in case of under-shed, operators will
adjust generation pattern to remove under-shed conditions
upon receiving the under-shed alarm from EMS.
Two particular practical treatments, i) minimize the number
of candidate units, ii) set a reasonable tolerance for early stop,
in the optimization process are effective for softening NP-
hardness of the problem to improve real-time performance of
the generation shedding allocation process.
Also, such an algorithm can always provide a solution in
real-time operations, thus to meet the requirements of
robustness and reliability.
The optimization process implemented is flexible to receive
multiple sources of security enhancement requirement inputs
from user interfaces, offline and/or online study results of
DSA (Dynamic Security Assessment) provided by other
applications so long as the input data respect the standard
format shown in Table 3.

VII. REFERENCES
[1] Bertsch, J., Carnal, C., Karlson, D., McDaniel, J. Vu, K., “Wide-Area
Protection and Power System Utilization”, Proceedings of the IEEE, May
2005, Vol. 93, No. 5, pp. 997-1003
[2] Van Cutsem, T., “Voltage instability: phenomena, countermeasures, and
analysis methods”, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 88, No. 2, Feb. 2000,
pp. 208 – 227.