An analysis of large-scale transmission power blackouts from 2005 to 2016

Maxime Velay (1) , Meritxell Vinyals (1) , Yvon Besanger (2) , Nicolas Retière (2)

1 LADIS (CEA, LIST) - Laboratoire d'analyse des données et d'intelligence des systèmes (CEA, LIST)
2 G2ELab - Laboratoire de Génie Electrique de Grenoble

Power transmission blackouts, have large technical, economic, and social consequences in the affected areas. As power systems evolve with new customs, technologies and regulations, continuous analysis of recent blackouts is crucial for identifying new trends and for updating prevention measures. In this paper, we analyze 9 major blackouts that happened between 2005 and 2016, to complete previous blackout studies. We classify these blackouts depending on the conditions and events before and during the cascades and identify their main characteristics. Our analysis reveals that blackouts from the last decade tend to happen in periods of normal loading with some important equipment out of service and with highly dependent transmission system regions. Moreover, recent blackouts show a tendency to enter directly the fast cascade, leaving system operators with hardly any time to take any countermeasure.

Mots clés: Power system reliability; power transmission reliability; Reliability; large-scale transmission power blackouts; technical consequences; social consequences; power systems; recent blackouts; system operators; economic consequences; transmission system regions; Loading; Maintenance engineering; Reactive power; Electric blackout; Large scale blackout; cascading failure; cascade analysis; power system stability; cascade prevention 0

Domaines: Energie électrique

Maxime Velay, Meritxell Vinyals, Yvon Besanger, Nicolas Retière. An analysis of large-scale transmission power blackouts from 2005 to 2016. 2018 53rd International Universities Power Engineering Conference (UPEC), Sep 2018, Glasgow, United Kingdom. pp.8541901, ⟨10.1109/UPEC.2018.8541901⟩. ⟨hal-02330748⟩