A Novel Network Partitioning Approach in Smart Grid Environment

Smart grid development highlights the "self-healing" capability as it enables a power system to efficiently and automatically react to disturbances and guide the system to the best possible state. Effectively partitioning the power network (PN) into suitable areas or zones to accommodate subsequent control actions is useful. In this paper, a novel partitioning approach that combines Laplacian spectrum of a PN and self organizing map (SOM) algorithm is proposed. This approach aims to optimize the partitioning solution so as to minimize the real power imbalance and simultaneously maintain a satisfactory voltage profile. Case study is carried out on New England 39-bus system, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.