0522Risk and Vulnerability Analysis of Power systems including extraordinary events.pdf

1 Abstract—This paper describes a framework and methodology for risk and vulnerability analysis including extraordinary events in power systems. The framework is based on a bow-tie structure and identifies threats, unwanted events, barriers and consequences. Application of the methodology is shown for a real case analyzing extraordinary events in a transmission system. In this case the consequence is unacceptable, but the risk is moderate due to the low probability for the event to occur. The case study and experience so far indicates that one of the most challenging parts of a risk and vulnerability analysis is how to identify the vulnerable operational states and extraordinary events. Index Terms—Power systems, risk and vulnerability, extraordinary events, barriers, causes, consequences. I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND LTHOUGH the power system at transmission level usually is dimensioned and operated according to the N-1 criterion, history shows that blackouts still occur in different parts of the world [1]. Such wide-area interruptions in the electricity supply have severe impacts on society’s critical functions, and there is a need for tools and methods to structure and analyze events, causes and consequences. The study of power system reliability has long traditions. Relevant literature is often concerned with either generation adequacy or system security, e.g. [2, 3]. Classical contingency analyses are based on expectation values and usually consider only a few operational states like e.g. heavy and light load. With such an approach it may be difficult to reveal special combinations of events leading to large consequences, but with low probability (extraordinary events, or high impact low probability events). More recently several papers are addressing power system vulnerability [4, 5]. In [6] a methodology is presented where the three different types of incidents; energy shortage, capacity shortage, and power system