Fractal Characteristics Analysis of Blackouts in Interconnected Power Grid

Abstract

The power failure models are a key to understand the mechanism of large scale blackouts. In this letter, the similarity of blackouts in interconnected power grids (IPGs) and their subgrids is discovered by the fractal characteristics analysis to simplify the failure models of the IPG. The distribution characteristics of blackouts in various subgrids are demonstrated based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test. The fractal dimensions (FDs) of the IPG and its subgrids are then obtained by using the KS test and the maximum likelihood estimation. The blackouts data in China were used to demonstrate the similarity of distribution characteristics and FDs of the IPG and its subgrids. The results are consistent with the development of the power grids.