Dynamic Vulnerability Assessment and Intelligent Control

Preface

Traditionally, electrical power systems worldwide have been planned and operated in a relatively conservative manner, in which power system security, in terms of stability (i.e. dynamic performance under disturbances), has not been considered a major issue. Most of the tools developed and applied for these tasks were conceived to deal with reduced levels of uncertainty and have proven to be helpful to identify optimal developmental and operational strategies that ensure maximum net techno-economic benefits, in which only the fulfilment of steady-state performance constraints has been tackled.

The societal ambition of a cleaner, sustainable and affordable electrical energy supply is motivating a dramatic change in the infrastructure of transmission and distribution systems in order to catch up with the rapid and massive addition of evolving technologies for power generation based on renewable energy sources, particularly wind and solar photovoltaics. In addition to this, the emergence of the prosumer figure and new interactive business schemes entail operations within a heterogeneous and rapidly evolving market environment.

In view of this, power system security, and especially the analysis of vulnerability and possible mitigation measures against disturbances, deserves special attention, since planning and operating the electric power system of the future will involve dealing with a large volume of uncertainties that are reflected in highly variable operating conditions ...