Area-Wide System Protection Scheme Against Extreme Contingencies

The deregulation of the electricity supply industry with its associated competitive electricity market has created additional difficulties for power system security. It has accentuated the ever-present danger posed by extreme contingencies that continue to disrupt entire interconnected power systems, such as the 30 billion dollar, 14 August 2003 northeast American blackout. A proposal has been made to use operational constraints as market indicators, an attitude that does nothing to alleviate the multimillion dollar cost of each power system collapse. By contrast, successfully sustaining power system integrity by dealing with extreme contingencies would remove many of the prevailing (and unsuccessful) operational constraints. A completely different avenue has been devised for circumventing the uncertainties associated with unforeseeable extreme contingencies. This new approach would automatically activate timely responses specifically in the region initially impacted by the extreme contingency. A future path is proposed that can use existing technology with energy storage devices to further enhance security and diminish the uncertainties bedeviling the electricity supply industry.