A Sensitivity-Based Approach for the Detection of Multiple-Line Outages Using Phasor Measurements

A new approach for identifying multiple line outages in electric power systems by using data obtained from synchrophasor measurements is proposed in this paper. A novelty of the proposal is the application of the sensitivity theory to the system's alternating current power flow model to determine the most likely contingency scenario, with not previous knowledge of the number of line outages. Since the proposal considers both voltage and current synchrophasor measurements, a set of observable lines is defined such that their outages are identified directly from those measurements. In this context, the more observed transmission lines there are, the smaller the search space for identifying potential outages in unobserved transmission lines. On the other hand, the detection problem of multiple-line outages is decomposed into the sequential uncovering of different single-line outages by using the concept of total derivative. The reduction of the search space and the decomposition of the multiple-line outages problem significantly reduce the computational burden of the proposed approach. Finally, numerical results demonstrate that the proposal presents a very satisfactory percentage of success for identifying the correct set of line outages, even when a limited number of PMUs is embedded in the system.