How does the vulnerability of an evolving power grid change?

摘要

Topological robustness and fault tolerance of the power system are amongst the most studied topics when it comes to the assessment of grid vulnerability. The use of adequate methods and performance metric can greatly contribute to a number of actions, including operation planning, grid development and other specific measures. A shortcoming of several studies is that they fail to take the aspects of network evolution into consideration. In this paper the seven-decade historical dataset (1949-2019) of the Hungarian power system is used to perform vulnerability assessment applying a complex network approach. Damage tolerance of the network is examined against node and edge removals. The results show that the evolving grid has increased its tolerance against large disturbances very early, but vulnerability values show little variance from 1979, despite that the size of the network has increased significantly. It is also found that more efficient and more robust topologies impose slightly conflicting conditions for grid development planning.