A Multi-area Assisted Rotational Load Shedding Plan for Mutual Support of Power Systems Under Abnormal Situations

In highly interconnected power systems such as the case of the European one, crisis situations usually have cross-border effects. A cooperation among member states to manage crisis situations leads to take more effective actions and to ensure electricity is delivered where it is most needed. If the supply resources are not adequate to manage the situation, demand-side resources support the system operators to preserve system security. Load shedding is considered as the last resort to manage crisis situations. This paper addresses load shedding plans to control abnormal situations, which can be implemented at a regional level and in a rotational manner to preserve provision of essential services inside the affected power systems through shedding non-sensitive loads within the neighboring regions. A decision making algorithm has been implemented for regional crisis management in interconnected power systems to utilize the available supply and demand side resources more efficiently. The decision making problem prioritizes the supply of different load categories based on their sensitivity to supply protected loads and to ensure availability of operating reserves within the region, taking into account technical limits of resources and network constraints. The proposed approach is tested on the 3-region IEEE RTS 96 test system.