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Virginia Tech

WAMS-based Intelligent Load Shedding Scheme for Preventing Cascading Blackouts

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Severe disturbances in a large electrical interconnection cause a large mismatch in generation and load in the network, leading to frequency instability. If the mismatch is not rectified quickly, the system may disintegrate into multiple islands. Though the Automatic Generation Controls (AGC) perform well in correcting frequency deviation over a period of minutes, they are ineffective during a rolling blackout. While traditional Under Frequency Load Shedding Schemes (UFLS) perform quick control actions to arrest frequency decline in an islanded network, they are not designed to prevent unplanned islanding. The proposed Intelligent Load Shedding algorithm combines the effectiveness of AGC Scheme by observing tie line flows and the speed of operation of the UFLS Scheme by shedding loads intelligently, to preserve system integrity in the event of an evolving cascading failure. The proposed scheme detects and estimates the size of an event by monitoring the tie lines of a control area using Wide Area Measurement Systems (WAMS) and initiates load shedding by removing loads whose locations are optimally determined by a sensitivity analysis. The amount and location of the load shedding depends on the location and size of the initiating event, making the proposed algorithm adaptive and selective. Case Studies have been presented to show that control actions of the proposed scheme can directly mitigate a cascading blackout.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph. D.
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Electrical Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2013

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Veda, Santosh Sambamoorthy
Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Thorp, James S.
  • Phadke, Arun G.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • De La Ree, Jaime
  • Pierson, Mark Alan
  • Shukla, Sandeep K.
  • Centeno, Virgilio A.

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:111
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/19251

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Veda, Santosh Sambamoorthy. WAMS-based Intelligent Load Shedding Scheme for Preventing Cascading Blackouts. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/19251