Areas of Vulnerability in an Environment of Uncertainty

This paper addresses the vulnerability of power system operating in an environment of increasing uncertainty. Uncertainty can be related to the performance of a system under stress and the measures whereby this condition of possible system collapse could be identified and averted through remedial actions. For this reason, the paper begins with a definition of a vulnerable system as one that is in a degraded state and is then subjected to moderate disturbances that can lead to system collapse. When uncertain generation such as wind generation or deregulation is then introduced, these moderate disturbances can be regarded as variations in the wind generation or the system topology.