Decision Trees for Dynamic Security Assessment and Load Shedding Scheme

E. M. Voumvoulakis, A. E. Gavoyiannis and N. D. Hatziargyriou Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Zographou 15773, Athens, Greece

Abstract Modern Power Systems often operate close to their stability limits in order to meet the continuously growing demand, due to the difculties in expanding the generation and transmission system. An effective way to face power system contingencies that can lead to instability is load shedding. In this paper we propose a method to assess the dynamic performance of the Greek mainland Power System and to propose a load shedding scheme in order to maintain voltage stability under various loading conditions and operating states in the presence of critical contingencies including outages of one or more generating units in the south part of the system. A Decision Tree is used to assess the dynamic Performance of the system. The candidate attributes of the Decision Tree are chosen through a data mining process Keywords:Decision Trees, Load shedding, Dynamic security Assessment, Data mining

I. I NTRODUCTION As the increase in electric power demand outpaces the installation of new transmission and generation facilities, power systems are forced to operate with narrower margins of security. Security is dened as the capability of guaranteeing the continuous operation of a power system under normal operation even following some signicant perturbations [1]. As security is a major, if not ultimate, goal of power system operation and control, a fast and reliable security assessment is necessary. Dynamic Security Assessment (DSA), can deal with transient stability problems and/or voltage stability problems that respectively require transient stability assessment and voltage stability assessment [2],[3]. This paper focuses on voltage stability assessment. Voltage stability [2], is concerned with the ability of a power system to maintain steady acceptable voltages at all buses in the system both under normal operating conditions and after being subjected to a disturbance. Instability may occur in case of a progressive fall or rise of voltage of some buses. The main factor causing voltage instability is the inability of the power system to maintain a proper balance of reactive power throughout the system [4]. One of the objectives in power system security analysis, which is emphasized in this paper, is to indicate corrective actions that would keep the system in operation after a contingency has occurred. Load shedding is one common and effective corrective action to which we resort when the security of a power network is jeopardized. The Greek system is prone to voltage instability, especially during summer [5]. The phenomenon is related to the power transfer from the generating areas in the North and West of

Greece to the main load centre in the Athens metropolitan area reaching its maximum. The problem is due to the long electrical distance between generation and load consisting of generator step-up transformers, 400 kV and 150 kV transmission lines, 400/150 kV autotransformers and bulk power delivery transformers. Several Articial Intelligence Techniques , like Radial Basis Functions, Articial Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines have been applied to DSA [6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11]. Even though these methods assess the dynamic performance of the system with accuracy, they provide no information regarding the corrective actions need to be taken when the systems state is unsafe. In this paper the development of an automatic learning framework both for power system security assessment and load shedding scheme is discussed. The power system can be characterized by a vast number of variables (Voltages,angles, consumed and generated active and reactive power, etc). With a data mining technique the most important attributes are chosen and these are going to be used as inputs for the decision tree. This tree can perform only DSA and cannot be used for Load shedding. In order to derive a Decision Tree for Load shedding scheme, only attributes concerning active power shall be used. The Load shedding scheme can be derived by inverse reading of the constructed Decision Tree. In chapter II the theory of Decision Trees is developed. Chapter III gives a description of the under study case system and chapter IV describes the process of the creation of the Knowlwedge Base. In chapter V the technique of feature selection is developed. In chapters VI and VII the derived DTs for Dynamic Security Assessment and Load Shedding are presented respectively. Finally in chapter VII there is a simulation of the proposed Load Shedding schemes. II. D ECISION T REES The Decision Tree (DT) is a tree, structured upside down, built on the basis of a Knowledge Base (KB) consisting of a large number of Operating points (OPs), covering all possible states of the under study power system in order to ensure its representativity [12], [13], [14], [15]. The Knowledge Base is dened as: KB = {(v1 , c1 ) , (v2 , c2 ) , ..., (vN , cN )} Where ck and vk is dened as: ck {+, } (2) (1)

1-4244-0493-2/06/$20.00 2006 IEEE.

vk = (u1 k , u2 k , ..., unk )T

(3)

The elements of vector vk represent the values of the state sk , which is characterized by its N attributes: sk = [a1 = u1 k ] [a2 = u2 k ] [aN = uN k ] (4)

These attributes are the predisturbance steady-state variables and characterize each Operating Point. The KB is divided in a learning set (LS) used for deriving the classier structures and a test set (TS) used to evaluate the performance of these structures on new, unobserved OPs. The construction of a DT starts at the root node with the whole LS of preclassied OPs. At each step, a tip-node of the growing tree is considered and the algorithm decides whether it will be a terminal node or should be further developed. To develop a node, an appropriate attribute is rst identied, together with a dichotomy test on its values. The test T is dened as: T : Aij = t (5)

Fig. 1.

An example of a Decision Tree.

where t is the optimal thresshold value of the chosen attribute Ai . The selection of the optimal test is based on maximizing the additional information gained through the test. The information gain is based on the entropy of each subset En with respect to the class partition of its elements, dened as: Hc (En ) = (fs lof fs + fi logfi ) (6)

criterion, if it is true we go on the left node, otherwise we go on the right. D.Ts are evaluated using the Testing Set (T.S.). The most important evaluator of the D.T. reliability and performance is the rate of successful classications, dened as the ratio of successfully classied O.Ps to the number of O.Ps tested. Success Rate =
OP s successf ully classif ied by the DT T otal number of OP s in the T S

where fs and fi are the relative frequencies of the secure and insecure OPs, respectively, in the subset. The selected test is applied to the LS of the node splitting it into two exclusive subsets, corresponding to the two successor nodes. Every subset (node) is characterized by its security index (SI), dened as the percentage of secure OPs belonging to this subset. The optimal splitting rule is applied recursively to build the corresponding subtrees. In order to detect if one node is terminal, i.e., sufciently class pure, the stop splitting rule is used, which checks whether the entropy of the node is lower than a preset minimum value. If it is, the node corresponds to a sufciently pure subset (states belong to the same class) and is declared a leaf; otherwise, a test is sought to further split the node. If the node cannot be further split in a statistically signicant way, it is termed a deadend, carrying the two class probabilities estimated on the basis of the corresponding OPs subset. A more detailed technical description of the approach followed is described in [14], [15]. Figure 1 shows a hypothetical decision tree (DT) : to infer the output information corresponding to given input attribute values, one traverses the tree, starting at the top-node, and applying sequentially the dichotomous tests encountered to select the appropriate successor. When a terminal node is reached, the output information stored is retrieved. The nodes of the D.T. have the following scheme: There are 4 attributes. In the upper right side is the number of O.Ps, which belong to the node. In the upper left side is the label of the node. In the middle is the safety index. Finally in the bottom is the dichotomy test of the node or the characterization of the node as deadend or leaf. In case there is a separation

For a two class partition (Safe-Unsafe) there can be distinguished two types of error, depending on the actual class of the misclassied O.P.: F alse Alarm Rate = =
Saf e OP s misclassif ied as Unsaf e by the DT T otal number of Saf e OP s in the T S

M issed Alarm Rate = =

Unsaf e OP s misclassif ied as Saf e by the DT T otal number of Unsaf e OP s in the T S

The decision tree results and the number of the nodes depend on the accuracy given from the user. Inittially highaccuracy parameters are given in order to obtain a large and accurate tree. Afterwards the tree size is gradually reduced in order to get a tree with more practical rules, because usually the initial tree is quite large with many non-important nodes, which have very small percent of OPs. This structure is not suitable for fast security assessment, taking into account that for corrective action it is needed to cross the tree backwards. With this procedure nally it is obtained a decision tree, which in most cases has a little worst accuracy but has quite less nodes and gives more practical and clear rules for the security of the system. III. S TUDY C ASE S YSTEM The study case system is the model of the Greek mainland system projected to 2005. It comprises steam turbines, which produce the base load and almost 70% of the annual energy, hydro turbines which are used for peak load and frequency

Fig. 2.

IEEE type 1 Exciter

regulation and combined cycle units. The above units are represented to the model by 78 generators. The system is interconnected with the rest Balkan system with two 400 kV synchronous interconnections, one with Boulgaria and one with FYROM. The slack bus is considered to be the bus of the interconnection with FYROM (Voltage 408kV, angle 0 deg). There is also a new DC interconnection with Italy which connects the system directly to the European one. The peak load is about 10000 MW (estimate for summer 2005). In order to simulate the dynamic performace of the power system, the following devices were modelled:

Fig. 3.

Field Current short time overload curve

The interconnection with Boulgaria and FYROM, were modelled as synchronous generators with high nominal power (20 GW) and inertia coefcient (10 MW s/ MVA). These generators have no overexcitation limiter and their statism is low , so that they can undertake the load , when a contingency takes place. The load is modelled as a ZIP load with 25 % constant power load, 25% constant current load, %50 constant impedance load. IV. C REATION OF THE K NOWLEDGE BASE The application of Automatic Learning techniques is based on previous knowledge about the behaviour of the system, obtained from a large number of off-line dynamic simulations that dene a data set. This data set is split into a Learning set (LS), used to derive security evaluation structures, and a Test Set used for testing the developed structures. The data set consists of a large number of operating points, covering the behaviour of the Power System in a region close to its peak loading, as the Hellenic Transmission System Operator (HTSO) estimates it for 2005. More specically the region covered is between 91% and 110% of the maximum Load. The distribution of the total load of the system is the summation of 20 Gauss distributions with centres 91%,92%,...,110% of the maximum total load respectively. The production of each unit equals to the production of the unit when the system operates at maximum load, multiplied with the coefcient 91% to 110% respectively (as long as it is between its technical minimum and maximum). Fig. 4 illustrates the Histogram of the total Load of the Power System. Each operating point is characterized by a vector of predisturbance steady-state variables, called attributes, that can be either directly measured (power, voltages, etc.) or indirectly calculated quantities (wind penetration, spinning reserve, etc.). The quality of the selected attributes and the representativity of the learning set are very important for the successful implementation of the classication. For the creation of the data set a number of 4000 initial operating points are obtained by varying randomly the load for each bus in the area and the production of the generating units. The simulated disturbance is the loss of a combined cycle unit at Lavrio with 460 MW

Exciters. Although the minimum modeling required for dynamic simulation is a generator model, each machine should also have an exciter model to ensure greater accuracy of the simulation, and in certain cases to ensure that the unit is transiently stable. Also a Power System Stabilizer must be added to the exciter circuits to force stability. One of the most common excitation systems is the IEEE type 1, which is a combination of a regulator an exciter and a stabilizer. Fig. 2 illustrates the block diagramm of the IEEE type 1 exciter. Steam Turbine Governor. The prime mover governor model is required to demonstrate long-term stability of the unit in response to frequency oscillations. The statism coefcient is high (1 p.u.), so that steam turbines dont participate in the frequency regulation. Only the combined cycle units have a statism coefcient arourn 7%. Hydro Turbine Governor. The hydro turbines are used for frequency regulation and their statism coefcient is around 4%. Overexcitation Limiter. Overexcitation limiters are devices which protect synchronous machine eld windings from over heating [16]. The limiting action provided by these devices must offer proper protection while simultaneously allowing maximum eld forcing for power system stability purposes. Typical operating characteristics attempt to mimic the eld current short-time overload capability given in ANSI standard C50.13-1977 as illustrated in Fig. 3.

The model includes the generation and transmission system up to 20 kV buses. The total number of buses is 876, there are 846 lines and 206 transformers.

of the input feature set. This stage can be considered as a pre-processing step. This is an extremely important step, as selected features should characterize properly a variety of power system operating conditions. The feature selection is performed here in two stages. In the rst stage a feature selection algorithm is performed to reduce the number of features to 45. In the second stage the 45 features derived from the rst stage, are used as candidate attributes for the construction of the Decision Trees. The Decision Trees can choose from the 45 features the most important. The rst stage of feature selection makes use of the concept of divergence [17] which is calculated by using the training set.Divergence is a measure of dissimilarity between two classes and is expressed as
1 1 Ci Jij = 1 2 tr (Ci Cj ) Cj

Fig. 4.

Histogram of total load TABLE I T WO - CLASS PARTITION OF THE O PERATING POINTS .

Knowledge Base 4000 class A (secure) class B (insecure)

Learning Set 2000 1183 817

Test Set 2000 1191 809

Two-class Partition of the Operating points

nominal active power. This disturbance can lead to dangerously low voltage levels, especially in the region of Athens. At the end of the simulation the voltage level in the buses of the area is recorded. It is desired that all voltages are above a security threshold which has be taken 0.9 of nominal voltage, otherwise the system operation is considered unsatisfactory. Training is performed by random selection of the learning set, while the test set is the rest of the data set. In this way, the learning rate is checked and the capability of the method to classify correctly unforeseen states can be evaluated on a more objective basis.

V. F EATURE SELECTION Generally the features that may be applied to describe a power system state are: 1) The voltage magnitude and phase angle at each system bus 2) The active and reactive power of each bus load 3) The active and reactive power ow of all the lines 4) The active and reactive power interchange between areas 5) The active and reactive power output of each generator plant For large power systems the number of features is prohibitively large, and dimensionality reduction must be performed to identify the most signicant and useful subset of features that carries sufcient discriminating properties to perform classication most accurately. The term feature selection is taken to refer to algorithms that output a subset

1 t 1 1 + tr Ci (7) (mi mj ) (mi mj ) . + Cj 2 where tr is the trace of a mattrix and is equal to sum of its Eigen values , Ci is the covariance matrix of class i of size [D D], mi is the mean of class i of size [D 1], t (mi mj ) the transpose of (mi mj ) and D the number of features. Features which give large divergence are more important than others. Different combinations of features can be compared by comparing their respective divergence values. There are many ways to search for an optimal feature combination, like backtrack method, forward sequantial method and backward sequential method [18]. In this paper the forward sequential method is utilized. The forward sequential method is a bottom-up algorithm that starts by choosing the best individual features. this algorithm requires D! (D d)! evaluations, where d is the number of features of the reduced feature subset (here d=45). The process is described below 1) Start with an empty feature subset. 2) Add one feature at a time to the feature subset to form D feature subsets. 3) Evaluate the divergence of the subsets. 4) Choose the feature subset with the largest divergence and remove the respective feature from the list of candidate features. 5) If the dimension of the feature subset is equal to 45 then stop, else go to step 2. VI. C ONSTRUCTION OF THE D ECISION T REE FOR DSA Figure 5 illustrates the Decision Tree for DSA. The Decision tree has been constructed using the feature subset described above. Table IV describes the attributes used in the construction of the DT. The rules derived from the DT are applied to the Test Set, in order to evaluate the performance of the DT to the Dynamic Security Assessment of the system. The results are illustrated on Table III

Fig. 6.

Decisoin Tree fro Load Shedding TABLE IV ATTRIBUTES USED BY THE D.T.

ATTR1 ATTR2

Total active load of Atiki region Total active load of Athens metropolitan area

VII. C ONSTRUCTION OF THE D ECISION T REE FOR L OAD S HEDDING In order to construct a Decision Tree to form a load shedding scheme, we must use a different feature subset than previously. The feature subset used here is as follows 1) Total active load of each of the 11 areas to which the Greek power system is divided (11 features) 2) Total generated active power - Total active load of the 11 areas (11 features) 3) Total active load of the Greek power system (1 feature). The load shedding scheme is derived by crossing backwards the Decision Tree. Fig. 6 illustrates the load shedding Decision Tree. According to the Decision Tree of Fig. 6 when the imported power is greater then 500 MW and the Load in Athens Metropolitan area is greater than 3370 MW then the systems state is unsafe (Leaf 5). In order to transpose from this unsafe state to a safe one we have to options. 1) Curtailment of the load of Athens metropolitan area, such that the total load of the area is less than 3370 MW. This action equals to a transposition from Leaf 5 to Leaf 4 of the Decision Tree. 2) Curtailment of the load of Athens metropolitan area, such that the total load of the area is less than 3370 MW, plus curtailment of the load of Atiki area , such that it is less than 500 MW. This action equals to a transposition from Leaf 5 to Leaf 2 of the Decision Tree. The second option demands more load to be curtailed, but it is more reliable, as Leaf 2 has more OPs.

Fig. 5.

Decision Tree used for DSA TABLE II ATTRIBUTES USED BY THE DT

ATTR1 ATTR2 ATRR3 ATTR4 ATTR5

Active Losses in region Thessalia Imported Active Power from FYROM Interconnection Voltage of generator STRATOS Voltage at substation N. IONIA Voltage of generator LADONAS TABLE III

E VALUATION OF T WO -C LASS C LASSIFICATION P ERFORMANCE . Classication of Test Set by RBF For LS=3500 Samples of class A(1191) Samples of class B(809) Success Rate False Alarms Missed Alarms class A 1173 21 class B 18 788

Classication Performance Evaluation 98.05% (1961/2000) 1.51% (18/1191) 2.61% (21/788)

TABLE V E VALUATION OF T WO -C LASS C LASSIFICATION P ERFORMANCE . Classication of Test Set by the second DT For LS=2000 Samples of class A(1191) Samples of class B(809) Success Rate False Alarms Missed Alarms class A 1166 38 class B 25 771

Classication Performance Evaluation 96.85% (1937/2000) 2.10% (25/1191) 4.70% (38/809)

TABLE VI ATTRIBUTES USED BY THE D.T. ATTR1 ATTR2 517 MW 3480 MW

The Decision Tree of Fig. 6 can be used not only for the derivation of the Load Shedding Scheme, but also as a tool for Dynamic security Assessment. Table V illustrates the results of the DSA performed by this DT. It is observed that the DSA performance of the DT used for Load Shedding is poorest than the one of the DT, used explicitly for DSA. This is due to the fact that a data mining technique was utilized to construct the rst DT, while for the construction of the second DT, only limited number of features could be used. VIII. S IMULATION OF L OAD S HEDDING S CHEMES This paragraph illustrates the performance of the load shedding scheme. An Operating point is chosen, such that the operation of the system is Unsafe according to the rules of the Deciosion Tree in Fig. 6. This OP is described by table VI. According to the Load Shedding Scheme described in the previous paragraph, there are two options in order to ensure the safety of the power system. The rst option is to curtail 110 MW of the load of Athens metropolitan center. The second option is to curtail 110 MW of the load of Athens metropolitan center, plus 17 MW of the load of area Atiki. Figures 7,9,8 illustrate the lowest, the highest and the mean voltage of the 150 kV substations in Athens. IX. C ONCLUSIONS This paper describes a machine learning based method both for the Dynamic Security Assessment of a Power System and Load Shedding Scheme. The Decision Trees are trained fast and it is easy to integrate the proposed method to a control center. Two DTs were developed in this paper. The rst performs Dynamic Security Assessment.Results from the application of the method on operating point series from the Greek Mainland system show that Decision Trees are capable to evaluate the dynamic performance of the Power System. The second DT performs not only DSA but it can also be applied to derive corrective dispatch actions when the power system is in danger. Even though its performance in DSA is worst than the one of the rst DT, it can also be very usefull as it provides simple rules for a Load Shedding scheme.

Fig. 7.

Lowest voltage of Athens metropolitan area

Fig. 8.

Highest Voltage of Athens metropolitan area

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Fig. 9.

Mean Voltage of Athens metropolitan area

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