Hybrid Modelling of Interconnected Electric Power and ICT System for Reliability Analysis

Recent advancement of Information and Communication Technology contributes to the roll-out of wide-area monitoring and control of critical infrastructure systems, such as electric power systems. The growing complexity of interdependences emphases the heterogeneous nature of critical infrastructure systems, leading to joint analyses that take into account the vulnerabilities of every sector involved. This paper first presents, a system of systems model made up of electric power system, communication system and system operators and then demonstrates its application on reliability analysis using Sequential Monte Carlo simulations. Behaviours varying in time scale such as stochastic outages, generation-load balance, and overload-tripping cascading faults are put together in the model with automatic control schemes and restorative actions of operators. It was found that vulnerability of communication system weakens reliability of interconnected system and leads to more cascading failures while improving operator observability is effective to increase system reliability and reduce the number of large-size contingencies.