Survey Findings on Analytical Tools for Common-Mode and Dependent Outages in Power System Reliability Analysis

This paper presents results from a survey conducted by the IEEE Working Group on Probability Applications for Common Mode and dependent Events (PACME WG) in electric power systems. The main goal of the survey was to assess the state of industry practice in collecting data on common mode and dependent (CMD) outage events and using such data in planning and operational studies. This paper focuses on the survey findings regarding use of the data and analytical tools incorporating CMD outages in power system reliability analysis. A key finding is that there remains a widespread perception that CMD event data and how to use them still are not well understood, and that the tools available for system reliability analysis with CMD event data are inadequate. There is an evident need to develop a new generation of probabilistic methods, tools, and business practices to replace (or complement) the existing ones.