A survey on the applications of Petri net theory in power systems

Petri net (PN) is a modeling tool for describing and analyzing discrete-event dynamic systems, and could find applications in many areas such as computer systems, manufacturing systems and power systems. Since 1992, PN has been applied to power systems and paid much attention. So far, many papers associated with PN applications in power systems have been published with many specific areas involved, such as fault diagnosis, power system restoration, distribution network reconfiguration, unit commitment, power network topology analysis, reliability analysis, protective relay modeling and hybrid power systems. In this paper, an effort is made to have a concise and systematic survey on the applications of PN in power systems.