Basin configuration of a six-dimensional model of an electric power system

As part of an ongoing project on the stability of massively complex electrical power systems, we discuss the global geometric structure of contacts among the basins of attraction of a six-dimensional dynamical system. This system represents a simple model of an electrical power system involving three machines and an infinite bus. Apart from the possible occurrence of attractors representing pathological states, the contacts between the basins have a practical importance, from the point of view of the operation of a real electrical power system. With the aid of a global map of basins, one could hope to design an intervention strategy to boot the power system back into its normal state. Our method involves taking two-dimensional sections of the six-dimensional state space, and then determining the basins directly by numerical simulation from a dense grid of initial conditions. The relations among all the basins are given for a specific numerical example, that is, choosing particular values for the parameters in our model.