Balanced, non-contiguous partitioning of power systems considering operational constraints

This paper presents an integer programming based partitioning of dynamic graphs that arise in power systems. The proposed approach allows for explicitly expressing power systems operational constraints in the partitioning algorithm. Balanced, non-contiguous graphs appear in several power systems applications such as network partitioning for high performance computing based parallel transient simulators and in wide area control. Quality of partition obtained using the developed algorithm compares favorably with a well known multi-level graph partitioning approach - METIS. Several test systems, ranging from a 9 bus test system to the 2383 bus western polish test system is used to demonstrate the applicability of proposed approach for power system partitioning problems. In addition, applicability of the proposed approach for a non-stationary system such as power networks is demonstrated by partitioning in real-time. Real-time in this context is defined as the interval between two dispatches as the edge weights of the dynamic graph is expected to change at every dispatch.