Survivability-Based Method for Assessing Impacts of Load-Side Activities on Power Systems

This paper presents the development and testing of a survivability-based method for assessing possible impacts of load-side activities on power systems. The developed method is based on defining a survivability index Γ, which is formulated in terms of the difference between pre-activity and post-activity power injection into a load bus. In order to accommodate steady-state frequency and voltage tolerances, boundary values for the index Γ are defined for each load bus. The proposed survivability-based method is implemented and tested for the Barbados power system. Tests are conducted for integrating distributed generation units, and for implementing demand response at several load buses. Results of conducted tests show that the proposed method can accurately quantify the impacts of load-sides activities on the functionality of a power system. In addition, test results demonstrate that the accuracy of the survivability-based method is not affected by the type or rating of distributed generation units and/or times and durations of demand response actions.