Reducing the risk of major blackouts through improved power system visualization

Abstract – Many blackouts occur with time scales that would permit emergency control by the operators. However, in order to perform this control the operators need to quickly know the state of system and implement timely, corrective control actions. This paper describes several visualization techniques that can be used to provide this information. Techniques discussed include the use of dynamically sized pie charts on transmission lines, the use of transmission line flow animation, and the use of contouring