Cascade disruption of generation — Using adversity for learning & improvement

Large scale network disruption often lies at the heart of regional blackouts, and often disrupts entire communities in terms of their normal activities and well being. A special class (or subsection) of network disruption is often not specifically recognized and studied but could potentially add substantial insight towards the focused moderation of partial or complete system blackouts. Specifically, the class of event where triggering circumstances cause disruptive consequences to cascade into multiple generation facilities or units is considered in this paper. The analysis of such cascade generation disruptions (CGD) has highlighted many aspects deserving of engineering effort, since it involves various parties, and cannot be effectively managed without the full participation of different stakeholders, e.g. System Operators, Generators, Transmission Network Service Providers, etc. Isolated and often uncoordinated efforts to eradicate CGD events proved futile, proving the necessity of adopting a comprehensive and structured approach. It holds much potential value as a measure of system performance of various critical aspects of network management and its value as such should not be lost or neglected.