An effective multi-solution approach for power system islanding

Controlled islanding is known as a last resort to prevent power system blackouts. The most important challenge in this context is the appropriate selection of separation points in a very short time considering the practical constraints. In this regard, several islanding methods have been proposed until now. Among them, the methods that provide the appropriate solutions are usually very complicated and difficult to implement in the real-time application of power system separation. Also, all methods result in one islanding solution, which may not be optimal due to the limitation of the commonly used objective function. To overcome these limitations and reach a comprehensive solution, this paper proposes a straightforward multi-solution approach through a suggested hierarchical spectral clustering algorithm. In this concept, the most desirable islanding scenario could be selected based on secondary criteria to reach more sustainable islands. In the proposed method, the hierarchical clustering algorithm, which has good records in other applications, is improved such that the generator coherency constraint can be considered in the clustering process. Meanwhile, the transmission lines without remote-controllable circuit breakers could be easily excluded from the islanding solutions. The proposed method is tested using the model of the IEEE 39-bus test system. Furthermore, to evaluate the computational effectiveness and accuracy of the method in a large-scale grid, the model of Khorasan Regional Electric Company (KREC) power system (which is the biggest part of Iran power system) is used. The comparative analysis with the state-of-the-art methods verifies the superiority of the proposed approach.