Identification of critical buses and weak transmission lines using inherent structural characteristics theory

Power system components are susceptible to failures that could result in island formation which is highly undesirable and should be avoided. For a safe and reliable power system operation, all insecure operating states such as critical nodes and sets of candidate transmission links that could cause cascading outages within the networks must be quickly detected and identified in advance. This paper, therefore, investigates the relevance of Inherent Structural Characteristics Theory (ISCT) approach in this respect An insightful solution of the approach based on the atomic theory analogy is proposed. A Coupling Strength Index (CSI), which is capable of detecting the critical buses and weak transmission links within the power network is proposed. The effectiveness of the approach is tested using a 10-bus power system of equivalent Southern Indian network. Matlab 2013b environment is employed for the simulations. The results show viability of the approach for enhancing the operation of stressed power networks.