BOUNDING METHOD BASED ON GENERALIZED REAL POWER DISTRIBUTION FACTORS

An efficient bounding method for contingency screening is presented. I t is based on the use of generalised real power distribution factors c apable of modelling the effects of single and multiple topological con tingencies, also including bus splits and bus joins deriving from circ uit breaker operation. The proposed bounding method consists in identi fying the main reclosing paths for the incremental power change. Power flow limits are evaluated for the branches belonging to an interest a rea centred around the contingency location. The interest area is expa nded until the amount of power reclosing through not yet examined bran ches (boundary flow) falls under a preselected threshold value. Distri bution factors are used both in branch flow limit checking and in the computation of the boundary flow. Validation of the proposed method wa s achieved by extensive testing on both the IEEE 118-bus network and a ctual systems of Italian, European and North American origin.