Emergent failures and cascades in power grids: a statistical physics perspective
For power grid operators, it provides a rigorous method to predict failure cascades in renewable-heavy grids.
This paper models power grids with intermittent renewable sources as complex networks, using statistical physics to rank line failure likelihood and propagation paths, validated on German grid data.
We model power grids transporting electricity generated by intermittent renewable sources as complex networks, where line failures can emerge indirectly by noisy power input at the nodes. By combining concepts from statistical physics and the physics of power flows, and taking weather correlations into account, we rank line failures according to their likelihood and establish the most likely way such failures occur and propagate. Our insights are mathematically rigorous in a small-noise limit and are validated with data from the German transmission grid.