Impacts of control and communication system vulnerabilities on power systems under contingencies

Modern power grids rely heavily on their control systems operating over communication networks to mitigate the effects of stresses in the grid. However, the cascading phenomenon and blackouts remain possible if the initial disturbances in the power grid are accompanied by other system vulnerabilities such as failures of the communication and control systems that transmit and implement critical control signals. Understanding the effects of such vulnerabilities are important in the design of future smart grids. In this paper the vulnerabilities in the control and communication system are coupled with the load shedding mechanism and their effects on power-grid cascading behavior are revealed by means of simulation. In particular, the cascading failure behavior of the grid is investigated considering the effects of failures in the control and communication systems, as well as the topological location of the failures.