Pseudo-Geographical Representations of Power System Buses by Multidimensional Scaling

Graphical representations of power systems are systematically used for planning and operation. The coordinate systems commonly used by Transmission System Operators are static and reflect the geographical positions of each equipment of the system. We propose in this work to position on a two-dimensional map the different buses of a power system in a way such that their coordinates also highlight some other physical information related to them. These pseudo-geographical representations are computed by formulating multidimensional scaling problems which aim at mapping a distance matrix combining both geographical and physical information into a vector of two-dimensional bus coordinates. We illustrate through examples that these pseudo-geographical representations can help to gain insights into the power system physical properties.