Intentional islanding using a new algorithm based on ant search mechanism

Cascading failures and blackouts are the most significant threats for power system security. If the process of cascading failure proceeds by further line tripping, the system will face uncontrolled islanding. Establishment of uncontrolled islands with deficiency in MW or Mvar power balance are the main reasons for system blackout. In order to reduce the risk of blackout due to islanding, intentional or controlled islanding has been considered as a preventive strategy. In this paper, for identifying proper islanding scenarios in network, a new search algorithm based on the ant search mechanism is proposed. The security constraints considered for finding islanding scenarios are load-generation balance and line overloading which are implemented using linear programming and DC load flow. The proposed algorithm has been applied on IEEE 39-bus network with promising results showing the ability of the algorithm for finding proper islanding scenarios quickly. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.