Kai Sun

Denis Osipov, Kai Sun

The paper proposes a new adaptive approach to power system model reduction for fast and accurate time-domain simulation. This new approach is a compromise between linear model reduction for faster simulation and nonlinear model reduction for better accuracy. During the simulation period, the approach adaptively switches among detailed and linearly or nonlinearly reduced models based on variations of the system state: it employs unreduced models for the fault-on period, uses weighted column norms of the admittance matrix to decide which functions to be linearized in power system differential-algebraic equations for large changes of the state, and adopts a linearly reduced model for small changes of the state. Two versions of the adaptive model reduction approach are introduced. The first version uses traditional power system partitioning where the model reduction is applied to a defined large external area in a power system and the other area defined as the study area keeps full detailed models. The second version applies the adaptive model reduction to the whole system. The paper also conducts comprehensive case studies comparing simulation results using the proposed adaptively reduced models with the linearly reduced model on the Northeast Power Coordinating Council 140-bus 48-machine system.

Chengxi Liu, Bin Wang, Xin Xu et al.

It is well known that closed-form analytical solutions for AC power flow equations do not exist in general. This paper proposes a multi-dimensional holomorphic embedding method (MDHEM) to obtain an explicit approximate analytical AC power-flow solution by finding a physical germ solution and arbitrarily embedding each power, each load or groups of loads with respective scales. Based on the MDHEM, the complete approximate analytical solutions to the power flow equations in the high-dimensional space become achievable, since the voltage vector of each bus can be explicitly expressed by a convergent multivariate power series of all the loads. Unlike the traditional iterative methods for power flow calculation and inaccurate sensitivity analysis method for voltage control, the algebraic variables of a power system in all operating conditions can be prepared offline and evaluated online by only plugging in the values of any operating conditions into the scales of the non-linear multivariate power series. Case studies implemented on the 4-bus test system and the IEEE 14-bus standard system confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Bin Wang, Nan Duan, Kai Sun

Time domain simulation is the basis of dynamic security assessment for power systems. Traditionally, numerical integration methods are adopted by simulation software to solve nonlinear power system differential-algebraic equations about any given contingency under a specific operating condition. An alternative approach promising for online simulation is to offline derive a semi-analytical solution (SAS) and then online evaluate the SAS over consecutive time windows regarding the operating condition and contingency until obtaining the simulation result over a desired period. This paper proposes a general semi-analytical approach that derives and evaluates an SAS in the form of power series in time to approximate the solutions of power system differential equations. An error-rate upper bound of the SAS is also proposed to guarantee the reliable use of adaptive time windows for evaluation of the SAS. A dynamic bus method is proposed to extend the semi-analytical approach for solving general power system DAEs by efficiently linking the SASs for dynamic components through the numerical solution of the network algebraic equations. Case studies performed on the New England 39-bus system and the Polish 2383-bus system test the performance of the proposed semi-analytical approach and compare to existing methods. The results show that the SAS based approach has potentials for online simulations.

Bin Wang, Chengxi Liu, Kai Sun

The recently proposed non-iterative load flow method, called the holomorphic embedding method, may encounter the precision issue, i.e. nontrivial round-off errors caused by the limit of digits used in computation when calculating the power-voltage (P-V) curve for a heavily loaded power system. This letter proposes a multi-stage scheme to solve such a precision issue and calculate an accurate P-V curve. The scheme is verified on the New Eng-land 39-bus power system and benchmarked with the result from the traditional continuation power flow method.

Kai Sun, Yifan Ethan Xu, Hanwen Zha et al.

Since the recent prosperity of Large Language Models (LLMs), there have been interleaved discussions regarding how to reduce hallucinations from LLM responses, how to increase the factuality of LLMs, and whether Knowledge Graphs (KGs), which store the world knowledge in a symbolic form, will be replaced with LLMs. In this paper, we try to answer these questions from a new angle: How knowledgeable are LLMs? To answer this question, we constructed Head-to-Tail, a benchmark that consists of 18K question-answer (QA) pairs regarding head, torso, and tail facts in terms of popularity. We designed an automated evaluation method and a set of metrics that closely approximate the knowledge an LLM confidently internalizes. Through a comprehensive evaluation of 16 publicly available LLMs, we show that existing LLMs are still far from being perfect in terms of their grasp of factual knowledge, especially for facts of torso-to-tail entities.

Bin Wang, Kai Sun, Xin Xu

Nonlinear modal decoupling (NMD) was recently proposed to nonlinearly transform a multi-oscillator system into a number of decoupled oscillators which together behave the same as the original system in an extended neighborhood of the equilibrium. Each oscillator has just one degree of freedom and hence can easily be analyzed to infer the stability of the original system associated with one electromechanical mode. As the first attempt of applying the NMD methodology to realistic power system models, this paper proposes an NMD-based transient stability analysis approach. For a multi-machine power system, the approach first derives decoupled nonlinear oscillators by a coordinates transformation, and then applies Lyapunov stability analysis to oscillators to assess the stability of the original system. Nonlinear modal interaction is also considered. The approach can be efficiently applied to a large-scale power grid by conducting NMD regarding only selected modes. Case studies on a 3-machine 9-bus system and an NPCC 48-machine 140-bus system show the potentials of the approach in transient stability analysis for multi-machine systems.

Nan Duan, Kai Sun

This paper studies the semi-analytic solution (SAS) of a power system's differential-algebraic equation. A SAS is a closed-form function of symbolic variables including time, the initial state and the parameters on system operating conditions, and hence able to directly give trajectories on system state variables, which are accurate for at least a certain time window. A two-stage SAS-based approach for fast transient stability simulation is proposed, which offline derives the SAS by the Adomian Decomposition Method and online evaluates the SAS for each of sequential time windows until making up a desired simulation period. When applied to fault simulation, the new approach employs numerical integration only for the fault-on period to determine the post-disturbance initial state of the SAS. The paper further analyzes the maximum length of a time window for a SAS to keep its accuracy, and accordingly, introduces a divergence indicator for adaptive time windows. The proposed SAS-based new approach is validated on the IEEE 10-machine, 39-bus system.

Nan Duan, Kai Sun

Considering increasing distributed energy resources and responsive loads in smart grid, this paper proposes a stochastic simulation approach for stability analysis of a power system having stochastic loads. The proposed approach solves a stochastic, nonlinear differential equation model of the system in an analytical way by the Adomian decomposition method and generates semi-analytical solutions that express both deterministic and stochastic state variables explicitly as symbolic variables so as to embed stochastic processes directly into the solutions for efficient stability analysis with uncertainties. The proposed approach is tested on the New England 10-machine 39-bus system with different penetration levels of stochastic loads. The approach is also benchmarked with a traditional stochastic simulation approach based on the Euler-Maruyama method. The results show that the new approach has better time performance and a comparable accuracy.

Rui Yao, Kai Sun, Feng Liu et al.

Since cascading outages are major threats to power systems, it is important to reduce the risk of potential cascading outages. In this paper, a risk management method of cascading outages based on Markovian tree search is proposed. With the tree expansion on the cascading outage risk, risk gradient is computed efficiently by a forward-backward tree search scheme with good convergence, and it is then employed in an optimization model to minimize control cost while effectively reducing the cascading outage risk. To overcome the limitation with linearization in computing risk gradient, an iterative risk management (IRM) approach is further developed. Tests on the RTS-96 3-area system verify the accuracy of the computed risk gradient and its effectiveness for risk reduction. Time performance of the proposed IRM approach is tested on the RTS-96 system, a 410-bus US-Canada northeast system and a 1354-bus Mid-European system, and demonstrates its potentials for decision support on practical power systems online or on hourly basis.

Bin Wang, Xin Xu, Kai Sun

Small signal analysis is a special case of analytical approaches using Taylor expansions of power system differential equations with the truncation performed at order one. The truncated Taylor expansions (TTEs) at higher orders can lead to better approaches for stability analysis by considering higher order nonlinearities, e.g. normal form, modal series and nonlinear modal decoupling. This paper presents fundamental studies on how accurate transient stability analysis results can be obtained from the TTE systems compared to that on the original system. The analytical investigation is conducted on single-machine-infinite-bus power systems. Conclusions are drawn from there and verified on two multi-machine power systems by extensive numerical simulations.

Yang Liu, Kai Sun

This paper proposes a new semi-analytical approach for online time-domain power system simulation. The approach applies the differential transformation method (DTM) to the power system differential equation model to offline derive a semi-analytical solution (SAS) having symbolic variables about time, the initial state and system conditions. When simulation is online needed for a contingency under the current system condition, the SAS can be evaluated in real time to generate simulation results. Compared to the Adomian decomposition method in obtaining a power system SAS, an SAS derived by the DTM adopts a recursive form to avoid generating and storing its complete symbolic expression, which makes both derivation and evaluation of the SAS more efficient especially for multi-machine power systems. The optimal order of a DTM-based SAS is studied for the best time performance of simulation. The paper also designs a parallel computing strategy for power system simulation using the DTM-based SAS. Tests on the IEEE 10-machine 39-bus system demonstrate significant speedup of simulation using the proposed approach compared with the Runge-Kutta method.

Bin Wang, Yichen Zhang, Kai Sun et al.

Converter-interfaced power sources (CIPSs), like wind turbine and energy storage, can be switched to the inertia emulation mode when the detected frequency deviation exceeds a pre-designed threshold, i.e. dead band, to support the frequency response of a power grid. This letter proposes an approach to derive the emulated inertia and damping from a CIPS based on the linearized model of the CIPS and the power grid, where the grid is represented by an equivalent single machine. The emulated inertia and damping can be explicitly expressed in time and turn out to be time-dependent.

Bin Wang, Kai Sun

This letter proposes an analytical approach to formulate the power system oscillation frequency under a large disturbance. A fact is revealed that the oscillation frequency is only the function of the oscillation amplitude when the system's model and operating condition are fixed. Case studies also show that this function is damping-insensitive and could be applied to an inter-area model of a multi-machine power system.

Denis Osipov, Kai Sun

The letter proposes an adaptive model reduction approach based on tensor decomposition to speed up time-domain power system simulation. Taylor series expansion of a power system dynamic model is calculated around multiple equilibria corresponding to different load levels. The terms of Taylor expansion are converted to the tensor format and reduced into smaller-size matrices with the help of tensor decomposition. The approach adaptively changes the complexity of a power system model based on the size of a disturbance to maintain the compromise between high simulation speed and high accuracy of the reduced model. The proposed approach is compared with a traditional linear model reduction approach on the 140-bus 48-machine Northeast Power Coordinating Council system.

Bin Wang, Kai Sun, Wei Kang

It is well-known that in an m-machine power system where each machine is represented by a second-order differential equation, the Jacobian of the system equation contains (m-1) pairs of conjugate eigenvalues and two real eigenvalues, including at least one zero. This letter proves that under the uniform damping condition, the dynamics associated with the two real eigenvalues do not have any impact on the dynamics associated with those complex eigenvalues. This conclusion is important to justify the use of the relative motions or center-of-inertia (COI) coordinate to analyze the rotor angle stability in a multi-machine power system.

Bin Wang, Kai Sun, Wei Kang

Many natural and manmade dynamical systems that are modeled as large nonlinear multi-oscillator systems like power systems are hard to analyze. For such a system, we propose a nonlinear modal decoupling (NMD) approach inversely constructing as many decoupled nonlinear oscillators as the system oscillation modes so that individual decoupled oscillators can easily be analyzed to infer dynamics and stability of the original system. The NMD follows a similar idea to the normal form except that we eliminate inter-modal terms but allow intra-modal terms of desired nonlinearities in decoupled systems, so decoupled systems can flexibly be shaped into desired forms of nonlinear oscillators. The NMD is then applied to power systems towards two types of nonlinear oscillators, i.e. the single-machine-infinite-bus (SMIB) systems and a proposed non-SMIB oscillator. Numerical studies on a 3-machine 9-bus system and New England 10-machine 39-bus system show that (i) decoupled oscillators keep a majority of the original system modal nonlinearities and the NMD provides a bigger validity region than the normal form, and (ii) decoupled non-SMIB oscillators may keep more authentic dynamics of the original system than decoupled SMIB systems.