Islanding technique in power systems to avoid cascading failure

In order to increase the reliability of the power system and to make use of trapped generation potential from renewable sources due to lack of transmission availability, the interconnection of modern day power systems is increasing day by day. Lack of timely response to the ramping load and high degree of interconnection can lead to cascading failures. Upon inception, these can spread through the system within seconds and may result in a total system blackout. Natural calamities and erroneous operations of components are often the causes of system disturbances. The type and the location of these disturbances determine it\u27s impact on the system. Cascading failures spread through the system rapidly and pose a serious threat to system stability. Recent examples of such disturbances are the major blackouts that occurred in India on 30th and 31st July 2012. A loss of load of several thousands of megawatts was observed. Blackouts not only result in inconvenience to the residential customers but also cause a heavy monetary loss to the industry and to the nation as a whole. Depending upon the current system conditions, generation rescheduling or load shedding can be employed to combat system disturbances. System islanding is usually the last resort if none of the above produces desired results. The aim of this thesis to develop a program for identification of line outages that can initiate a cascading failure in the system. Development of generation rescheduling and load shedding algorithms to curb overloads in these lines. It also includes development and implementation of islanding procedure on a IEEE 118 Bus system, if the generation rescheduling and load shedding does not work. The system will be split into 3 independent stable islands as a preventive measure to avert the cascading failures --Abstract, page iii