Comparison of Different Power Flow Models in Power System Cascading Outage Simulation

Cascading outage is the most severe event for the power systems. Power flow model is an essential part in cascading outage simulation. In existing methods, traditional cascading outage simulation such as OPA model uses DC power flow. Despite simple, its effectiveness and limits are not fully discussed. In this paper, different power flow models, including the AC power flow model and DC power flow model, are applied and compared in cascading simulation. Particularly, the DC power flow model is embedded into the cascading simulation code in Matlab, while the AC power flow is carried out by BPA and Matlab. The simulation on IEEE-39 bus system verify the conclusion that these two power flow models have little impacts on the initial result of cascading outage simulation. However, AC power flow can reflect the power flow convergence problem as cascading outage develops.