Vulnerability of the large-scale future smart electric power grid

The changing power flow pattern of the power system, with inclusion of large-scale renewable energy sources in the distribution side of the network, has been modeled by complex network framework based bidirectional graph. The bidirectional graph accommodates the reverse power flowing back from the distribution side to the grid in the model as a reverse edge connecting two nodes. The capacity of the reverse edge is equal to the capacity of the existing edge between the nodes in the forward directional nominal graph. Increased path in the combined model, built to facilitate grid reliability and efficiency, may serve as a bottleneck in practice with removal of certain percentage of nodes or edges. The effect of removal of critical elements has been analyzed in terms of increased path length, connectivity loss, load loss, and number of overloaded lines.