Quantifying the impact of adverse events on the electricity grid as a function of grid topology

Traditional approaches to the study of grid vulnerability have taken an asset based approach, which seeks to identify those assets most likely to result in grid-wide failures or disruptions in the event that they are compromised. We propose an alternative approach to the study of grid vulnerability, one based on the topological structure of the entire grid. We propose a method that will identify topological parameters most closely related to the ability of the grid to withstand an adverse event. We compare these topological parameters in terms of their impact on the vulnerability metric we have defined, referred to as the grid's “survivability”. Our approach is motivated by Paul Baran's work on communications networks, which also studied vulnerability in terms of network-wide parameters. Our approach is useful both as a planning model for evaluating proposed changes to a grid and as a risk assessment tool.