Massive contingency analysis with high performance computing

Contingency analysis is a key function in the Energy Management System (EMS) to assess the impact of various combinations of power system component failures based on state estimates. Contingency analysis is also extensively used in power market operation for feasibility test of market solutions. Faster analysis of more cases is required to safely and reliably operate today's power grids which have a less margin and more intermittent renewable energy sources. Enabled by the latest development in the computer industry, high performance computing holds the promise of meet the need in the power industry. This paper investigates the potential of high performance computing for massive contingency analysis. The framework of ldquoN-xrdquo contingency analysis is established, and computational load balancing schemes are studied and implemented with high performance computers. Case studies of massive 300,000-contingency-case analysis using the Western Electricity Coordinating Council power grid model are presented to illustrate the application of high performance computing and demonstrate the performance of the framework and computational load balancing schemes.