Look-ahead voltage and load margin contingency selection functions for large-scale power systems

Given the current operating condition (obtained from the real-time data), the near-term load demand at each bus (obtained from short-term load forecast), and the generation dispatch (say, based on economic dispatch), we present in this paper a load margin measure (MW and/or MVAr) to assess the system´s ability to withstand the forecasted load and generation variations. We also present a method to predict near-term system voltage profiles. The proposed look-ahead measure and the proposed voltage prediction are then applied to contingency selections for the near-term power system in terms of load margins to collapse and of the bus voltage magnitudes. We evaluate the proposed look-ahead measure and the voltage profile prediction on several power systems including a 1169-bus power system with 53 contingencies with promising results