2044
4, NOVEMBER 2004
A Monte-Carlo Simulation Method for Setting
the Underfrequency Load Shedding Relays
and Selecting the Spinning Reserve Policy
in Autonomous Power Systems
Emmanuel J. Thalassinakis, Member, IEEE, and Evangelos N. Dialynas, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents a computational method using
the Monte-Carlo simulation approach for the calculation of the
settings of load shedding underfrequency relays and the selection
of appropriate spinning reserve policy in autonomous power sys-
tems. The method can be used for comparing alternative strate-
gies by taking into account the amount of load to be shed and the
corresponding risk for system stability. This method was applied
on a system, that is based on the autonomous power system of the
Greek island of Crete and the obtained results are presented and
discussed.
Index Terms—Autonomous power systems, load shedding,
Monte–Carlo simulation, spinning reserve, underfrequency
protection.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE POWER system operation requires that there must be a
balance between generation and load demand. The imbal-
ance between load demand and generation leads to a frequency
deviation. This deviation, particularly frequency drop, is crucial
to both the individual generating units and the stability of the
entire system. When the system frequency is low, the blades of
steam turbines are heavily stressed because frequencies (fun-
damental – harmonics) approach the blades natural frequen-
cies resulting in higher oscillations. This stress is cumulative
and results in the reduction of the turbine lifespan. Generators
are also overloaded and speed, and hence cooling, are below
normal. Voltages are likely to be low, causing generator exci-
tations that are near to their limits. All of these conditions can
lead to thermal overload of both stator and rotor and there is a
strong possibility for a generating unit to trip due to protection
activation [stator overheating, rotor overheating, over-excitation
or underfrequency (u.f.)]. This may lead to cascaded generator
trips and a black out [1], [2]. For this reason u.f. load shedding
relays are used for the system protection by shedding a certain
amount of load. The goal is to keep the frequency well above the
levels that any generating unit’s u.f. or other protection would be
activated. Load shedding protection belongs to the category of
Manuscript received February 4, 2004. Paper no. TPWRS-00625-2003.
E. J. Thalassinakis is with the Islands Department, Public Power Corporation,
Iraklion, Greece (e-mail: mthalassinakis@deh-ptdmkr.her.forthnet.gr).
E. N. Dialynas is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
National Technical University of Athens, Athens 15780, Greece (e-mail:
dialynas@power.ece.ntua.gr).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2004.835674
0885-8950/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 19, NO.
special protection schemes (SPS) because its purpose is to pro-
tect not a separate system machine or component but the entire
system and make it survive events of major disturbances char-
acterized by severe frequency drops.
There are two main cases for which the role of this protec-
tion is of major importance. Autonomous power systems often
experience severe frequency drops after the loss of one or more
generating units, which creates a considerable load – generation
imbalance. Also, large interconnected power pools experience
frequency drops when the interconnecting transmission lines are
tripped and the power balance in each pool is lost [3]. U.f. pro-
tection constitutes the last line of defense for the power system
and its operation has consequences to its customers. Therefore,
it should only be used when it is absolutely necessary, which is
a difficult decision to make [1], [4], [5]. There is no widely used
method for calculating the settings of the u.f. relays, which de-
termines the amount of the load to be shed, the stepping proce-
dure and the timing. The electric power utilities adopt different
approaches to this problem, which are mainly based on their ex-
perience and the robustness of their systems [4], [5].
Spinning reserve is the available power of the rotating gener-
ating units, which operate under their nominal levels and can be
used rapidly if there is a particular need. An increased amount
of the available spinning reserve increases the system reliability
and power quality while the system production cost also in-
creases [6], [7].
The objective of this paper is to present a computational
method, which is based on the Monte-Carlo simulation ap-
proach [8], [9] for determining the settings of the u.f. load
shedding relays and the level of the available spinning reserve.
Useful probabilistic indices and distributions are calculated
for comparing different load shedding strategies and spinning
reserve policies. The method was applied on a system that is
based on the autonomous power system of the Greek island of
Crete and the obtained results are presented and discussed.
II. COMPUTATIONAL ALGORITHM FOR THE
FREQUENCY TIME RESPONSE
The frequency performance of an autonomous power system
comprising thermal generating units of non reheat type can
be represented, with good approximation, by the linear model
shown in Fig. 1 [1], [10], [11]. This model simulates the fre-
quency dynamic response during the first few crucial seconds
THALASSINAKIS AND DIALYNAS: MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION METHOD
after the disturbance. The rapid action of the mechanisms of
every unit, which try to stabilize frequency at that first period,
is called primary regulation. As shown in Fig. 1, the system
behavior depends on certain factors that are the droop , the
inertia and the time constants and of the system
equivalent unit (governor and turbine) as well as the damping
factor of the load . The constants and are evaluated as
,
In Fig. 1, is the setting of the governor, is the output
of the governor, is the generation, is the load, and
is the frequency deviation from its nominal value. These system
parameters must satisfy the Laplace (1)–(3), which are easily
transformed to differential (4)–(6).When the system is in equi-
librium, , , , and are all considered to be constant
and is zero. When a sudden disturbance occurs causing an
imbalance between load and generation, these parameters vary
and the frequency diverts from its nominal value
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
The analytical solution of the above differential (4)–(6) is
rather complicated and it is usually found assuming certain
simplifications [1], [11]. The time constants and are
omitted as they are small (about 1s) compared to the time
constant (about 10s). From the simplified analytical solu-
tion, the frequency time response characteristic parameters of
final (residual) value and initial slope are derived. The residual
frequency value mainly depends on the system droop and the
damping factor as shown in (7), where, is the power
imbalance expressed in p.u. values. The initial slope
of the frequency is calculated by (8) and depends only on the
system inertia
(7)
(8)
A precise interpretation of the entire frequency transient phe-
nomenon is required, which means that the influence of all time
constants is important. Moreover, when load shedding occurs
at various time instants and under specific conditions imposed
by the u.f. relays settings, the analytical solution of the differ-
ential (4)–(6) becomes extremely difficult. For this reason, the
respective difference (9)–(11) were derived, where is the
time interval being considered for the numerical calculations.
A computational algorithm was developed applying these three
equations in order to calculate the frequency time response . upper limit
2045
Fig. 1. Frequency control loop of the power system.
The algorithm takes into account the effect of all time constants
and the operation of the u.f. relays, which may change the value
of load
(9)
(10)
(11)
Three typical frequency time responses were obtained from
the application of the developed algorithm and they are shown in
Fig. 2. Curve 1 shows the frequency response in case of a 0.4 p.u.
loss of generation without any load shedding. Curves 2 and 3
correspond to the same loss of generation but a load shedding
Psh occurs when the frequency falls below 49 Hz having a value
of 0.2 p.u. and 0.4 p.u. respectively. It can be noticed that, after
the transient period, the frequency stabilizes to its residual value,
which is lower than the nominal one if the load shedding is lower
than the loss of generation. If the load shedding is equal to the
loss of generation, the frequency returns to its nominal value
after a short transient period.
The frequency time response for a certain amount of loss
of generation also depends on the time instant of u.f. relays
operation. This can be shown from the two curves of Fig. 3,
where a load shedding of 0.2 p.u. is assumed to occur at 49
and 49.9 Hz, respectively. These curves show that the residual
frequency value is the same but the transient period differs, re-
sulting in considerably smaller frequency undershoot and over-
shoot. This means that the sooner the load is shed the better it is
for the system stability.
When a loss of generation event occurs causing load shed-
ding, certain important system parameters must be defined,
which describe the frequency time response as it is presented in
Fig. 4. The undershoot value of the frequency represents
the magnitude of the disturbance and it is related to the system
risk. The residual value is the value that frequency
will stabilize after the short transient phenomenon and before
the secondary regulation starts. The overshoot value
should not exceed the overfrequency protection levels of the
generating units. The slope at a certain point of the curve
determines the frequency rate of change ( ) at that specific
time instant. The system critical time is the time interval that
the frequency is below a critical level during which
the system is at risk. The turbines critical time and turbines
overfrequency time are the respective time intervals during
which the frequency exceeds a lower limit and an
, which are harmful to the turbines. The
2046
Fig. 2. Frequency time response after a loss of generation event.
Fig. 3. Frequency time responses with different time characteristics of load
shedding.
developed computational algorithm was extended appropriately
in order to calculate all the above system parameters.
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM INDICES
A strategy for setting u.f. relays is defined by a specific
number of steps, each of which is determined by the following
parameters:
• u.f. level;
• ;
• time delay;
• load to shed.
A new strategy is developed either by changing the number of
steps or at least one parameter of a step. Although two different
strategies can lead to equal values of load shedding for a spe-
cific outage, in the long term, every strategy leads to different
sequence of system response. In every sequence of events, the
following information are important for the power utility:
• the expected number and the amount of u.f. load shedding,
which affect the power quality and the reliability of the
system;
• the system frequency time response, which affects the tur-
bines lifespan and the risk for system stability. The accu-
mulated time that the frequency remains below a certain
threshold is critical for the turbines.
There are appropriate nomograms that are given by the manu-
facturers and relate the turbine lifespan with the low frequency
stress conditions. The risk for the system stability is also related
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2004
Fig. 4. Parameters of the transient period of the frequency time response after
a loss of generation causing load shedding.
to a critical frequency threshold. This threshold is not generally
defined but it depends on certain system characteristics such as
the individual generating unit protection levels, the contribution
of the individual unit generation output to the entire system pro-
duction, etc.
In order to compare alternative u.f. load shedding strategies,
all the above aspects should be quantified. For this purpose, the
following appropriate set of 31 system indices has been intro-
duced, which is divided into three main groups. The first group
concerns the reliability of generating units, the second group
concerns the system frequency response while the third group
concerns the load shedding.
A. Reliability Indices of Generating Units
A1. Expected Failure Rate of System Generating Units
(EFRSGU) in occ/year.
A2. System Mean Time Between Generating Units Fail-
ures (SMTBGUF) in hours.
B. System Frequency Response Indices
B1. MINimum Residual Frequency for the simulation pe-
riod (MINRF) in Hertz.
B2. Expected Residual Frequency (ERF) in Hertz.
B3. Root Mean Square Deviation from Nominal of all
Residual Frequencies (RMSDfNoaRF) in Hertz.
B4. MINimum Undershoot Frequency for the simulation
period (MINUF) in Hertz.
B5. Expected Undershoot Frequency (EUF) in Hertz.
THALASSINAKIS AND DIALYNAS: MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION METHOD
B6. Root Mean Square Deviation from Nominal of all Un-
dershoot Frequencies (RMSDfNoaUF) in Hertz.
B7. MAXimum Overshoot Frequency for the simulation
period (MAXOF) in Hertz.
B8. Expected System Critical Time (ESCT) in milli-
seconds.
B9. MAXimum System Critical Time for the simulation
period (MAXSCT) in seconds.
B10. Accumulated Turbines Critical Time for the simulation
period (ATCT) in minutes.
B11. Expected Turbines Critical Time (ETCT) in milli-
seconds.
B12. Expected Overfrequency Time (EOT) in milliseconds.
B13. Expected Time Between System’s Critical Frequency
Drops (ETBSCFD) in hours.
C. Load Shedding Indices
C1. Expected Time Between Consecutive Load Shedding
Events (ETBCLSE) in hours.
C2. Average System Load Shed due to Frequency Rate of
Change (ASLSFRC) in megawatts.
C3. Average System Load Shed due to First u.f. Level
(ASLSFufL) in megawatts.
C4. Average System Load Shed due to Second u.f. Level
(ASLSSufL) in megawatts.
C5. Average System Load Shed (ASLS) in megawatts.
C6. MAXimum System Load Shed for the simulation pe-
riod (MAXSLS) in megawatts.
C7. Expected Number of Annual Operations due to Fre-
quency Rate of Change (ENAOFRC) in oper./year.
C8. Expected Number of Annual Operations due to First
u.f. Level (ENAOFufL) in oper./year.
C9. Expected Number of Annual Operations due to Second
u.f. Level (ENAOSufL) in oper./year.
C10. Expected Annual Unserved Energy due to Fre-
quency Rate of Change Operations (EAUEdFRCO) in
MWh/year.
C11. Expected Annual Unserved Energy due to First u.f.
Level Operations (EAUEdFufLO) in MWh/year.
C12. Expected Annual Unserved Energy due to Second u.f.
Level Operations (EAUEdSufLO) in MWh/year.
C13. Expected Annual Unserved Energy (EAUE) in
MWh/year.
C14. Expected Number of Annual Temporary Interruptions
(ENALTI) in occ./year.
C15. Expected Load Not Supplied due to Temporary Inter-
ruptions (ELNSTI) in MW/occ.
C16. Probability of Load Shedding Occurrence given that
there is a Unit OUtage (PLSO/UOU) in %.
IV. MONTE – CARLO SIMULATION METHOD
The chronological Monte-Carlo approach [8], [9] was used to
model the operation of an autonomous power system. A com-
putational method was developed for simulating the operation
of the power system at the following three different levels.
• The hour-by-hour operation of the power system as it is
performed by the relevant Dispatching Center.
2047
• The generating units’ primary regulation and the u.f. re-
lays operation during the transient phenomenon after the
failure of a generating unit.
• The secondary regulation, which follows the primary reg-
ulation and the spinning reserve utilization.
The hour-by-hour operation of the power system is con-
trolled by the Dispatching Center and the goal is to supply the
hourly load demand. This is achieved by the generating units’
commitment, which takes into account their respective failures
and repairs. The generating units are assumed to reside in one of
two discrete states that are fully available (up) and unavailable
(down). The transitions of the generating units into a de-rating
state are not modeled since they usually need a considerably
longer time to occur (some minutes) compared to their sudden
trip and, therefore, they do not usually cause frequency drops.
The failure events are modeled by drawing state residence
times assuming exponential distributions, which are defined by
the known units’ failure rates. Other probability distributions
could be also used if the appropriate data is known. Similarly,
the repair events are modeled by draws from specific repair
time distributions. The transmission network failure events and
their possible constraints are not taken into account because
their modeling would extensively complicate the developed
method while the respective changes in the commitment and
dispatching of the system generating units would lead only to
marginal changes of the calculated indices and would influence
all the examined strategies similarly.
The generating units’ primary regulation tries to stabilize the
frequency when a generating unit outage occurs. The simula-
tion method calculates point to point the frequency transient re-
sponse by taking into account the primary regulation and the
operation of the u.f. protection. Load shedding is triggered ei-
ther at given frequency level without any other constraint or with
the constraint that is greater than a set value. Also, a time
delay can be set meaning that the above conditions should re-
main for the selected time before the trip command to the dis-
tribution circuit breakers is released. As the transient phenom-
enon usually lasts a few seconds the simulation of the first 20 s
is obtained.
The secondary regulation is an additional mechanism, which
tries to restore the already stabilized frequency to its nominal
value. This is achieved by the regulating units, which are con-
trolled by the Dispatching Center. It is a much slower mech-
anism (only some MW/min) and utilizes the spinning reserve
to restore the frequency. The required generation is calculated
from (7). The simulation method calculates the unserved energy,
which depends on the amount of the available spinning reserve.
Three different cases are considered by comparing the spinning
reserve before the outage occurrence with the generation needed
for the frequency restoration plus the load shedding.
• If the spinning reserve is equal or greater, the load can
be immediately restored, causing only temporary interrup-
tions (less than 2-min duration).
• If the spinning reserve is smaller, a part of the load cannot
be restored until available rapid generating unit starts,
which means that load interruptions will occur with dura-
tion of about 10–20 min.
2048
• If the spinning reserve is smaller and there is no available
rapid generating unit, the respective load interruptions will
continue for several hours until the load demand is de-
creased or other units will be available for operation.
The first step of the developed method is to input all the
system data including the mean hourly loads of the annual
chronological curve. The following main steps are applied for
every hour of a year.
• The generating units are committed and
de-committed to supply the respective load
demand, according to a specific list that
follows an economic priority order. A cer-
tain spinning reserve criterion is also
taken into account.
• If the operating time of a generating
unit exceeds the respective time to
failure, an outage is considered to occur
(down state) and a new random time to
repair is calculated.
• If the outage time of a generating unit
exceeds the respective time to repair,
the unit is assumed to return to a normal
operational state (up state) and a new
random time to failure is calculated.
• When a failure event of a generating
unit occurs, the point-to-point frequency
response curve is determined by taking
into account the units’ primary regulation
and the u.f. relays operation applying the
following three steps:
The system generating capacity, droop,
inertia and time constants are calculated
for the specific system conditions.
The numerical solution of (9)–(11) pro-
vides the point-to-point frequency time
response.
At each point in time that the set con-
ditions for the u.f relays are met, the
set load is cut off and the next fre-
quency point is calculated from (9)–(11)
by taking into account the new system
load.
• The parameters defined in Section II are
determined in order to help the estimation
of the proposed indices.
• The analytical residual value and ini-
tial slope [(7) and (8)] are calculated
and compared to the corresponding numer-
ical results.
• The hourly-unserved energy is calculated
by comparing the available spinning re-
serve before the outage occurrence with
the generation needed for the frequency
restoration plus the load shedding. The
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2004
start-up times are obtained by drawing
random times following known normal dis-
tributions.
• The list of the generating units that
will be available for the next hour is de-
duced by taking into account the failures
and repairs. This list is arranged ac-
cording the economic priority order.
All the proposed indices are calculated at the end of each year
simulation period and the simulation algorithm stops when none
of the indices has been changed more than 2% during the last
three simulation years. Fig. 5 shows the simplified flowchart of
the developed computational method.
The calculated indices provide valuable information to the
utility engineers so that they can adopt a specific strategy,
which meets the utility policy concerning the allowable u.f.
levels, the permitted units stress and the desired power quality.
A number of different strategies can be examined in order to
select the one with the optimal characteristics. This constitutes
a great improvement over the empirical method being used,
where the system was used to test the strategy, and changes
were made when necessary. Besides, the power system features
are changing with time imposing necessary adjustments to the
setting strategy so that there is not enough time for the implied
strategy to be tested.
The developed method can also be used to access different
spinning reserve policies. The usually adopted rule is to keep
a minimum spinning reserve level equal to 10% of the load or
equal to the capacity of largest generating unit being in opera-
tion. In autonomous power systems, this level may not be ad-
equate while the equivalent capacity of the largest unit can in-
crease the system production cost considerably. The developed
method can assess different alternative schemes by comparing
the indices concerning the unserved energy and power quality
(temporary interruptions) of the system.
Furthermore, the developed method can help in examining
alternative maintenance policies, which affect the failure rates
of generating units and, consequently, all the produced indices
being calculated. Therefore, the increased maintenance cost
can be compared with the cost of decreased unserved energy,
better power quality and lower system risk (number of possible
blackouts).
The developed method has been implemented efficiently into
a computer program, which also determines probability distri-
butions histograms for:
• the underfrequencies;
• the amount of load shedding;
• the time duration of load shedding;
• the mean u.f. and mean load shedding for each hour of a
typical day;
• the mean u.f. and mean load shedding for each month of
a typical year.
These histograms give useful information about the load shed-
ding interruptions, the time of a day with the deepest frequency
THALASSINAKIS AND DIALYNAS: MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION METHOD
Fig. 5. Flowchart of the developed computational method.
undershoots, the time of highest load shedding, the range of
more probable underfrequencies, etc.
V. ANALYSIS OF A TYPICAL SYSTEM
A typical system based on the autonomous power system of
Crete was used for testing the developed method. It is worth
mentioning that in the year 2001, a black-out of the entire
system occurred after the initial tripping of two generating
units and the severe frequency drop while the operation of
the u.f. load shedding protection proved inadequate. Although
this protection scheme proved successful for many previous
2049
TABLE I
SYSTEM GENERATION DATA
cases it proved inadequate for this specific case. A probabilistic
approach for determining the required protection scheme could
be adopted for facing and evaluating the system risk. The power
system consists of 23 thermal generating units while most of
them are old and have high numerical values of failure rates, re-
pair times and droops. The system nominal generating capacity
is 521.6 MW and the peak load of the annual chronological
curve is 430 MW. The system generation data are shown in
Table I, where the generating units are listed in an economic
priority order.
The following four strategies were examined assuming
, ,
and the obtained results are presented in Table II.
• Strategy 1: No u.f. protection, 10% minimum level of spin-
ning reserve.
• Strategy 2: Two u.f. levels, one with time delay (if
for then shed 7% of load) and another
without delay (if then shed 4% of load), 10%
minimum level of spinning reserve.
• Strategy 3: One u.f. level combined with the frequency rate
of change (if and then shed
10% of load) and one frequency level with time delay (if
for then shed 5% of load), 10%
minimum level of spinning reserve.
• Strategy 4: Similar to Strategy 3 but with 15% minimum
level of spinning reserve.
It can be noticed that the expected failure rate of system gen-
erating units is high and almost the same for the examined four
cases (approximately 134 failures per year) and a generating
unit trip occurs on average every 65 h.
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TABLE II
TYPICAL POWER SYSTEM INDICES
Although in Strategy 3 a greater number of distribution cir-
cuit breakers are connected to u.f. relays ( of
the load) in comparison to Strategy 2 ( of the
load), the index of expected annual unserved energy is smaller.
However, the increased unserved energy caused by Strategy 2
does not provide a safer frequency response, as it would be ex-
pected. As indicated by the results of Table II, Strategy 2 re-
sults in lower minimum undershoot frequency, longer expected
system critical time, longer maximum system critical time and
shorter expected time between system critical frequency drops.
However, Strategy 2 has the advantages of less accumulated
turbine critical time and shorter expected turbine critical time.
These advantages of Strategy 2 do not compensate for its disad-
vantages because the respective times are not considered very
important for the turbine lifespan. It can also be noticed that
the probability of load shedding occurrence given that there is
a generating unit outage, is only 4.6% for Strategy 3 while it
is 14.1% for Strategy 2.The main reason for the advantages of
Strategy 3 is due to the better choice of relay settings and, es-
pecially, the utilization of the frequency rate of change. The ob-
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2004
tained results prove that if the appropriate load is shed early (just
after the unit trip) the system recovery is much faster without
severe frequency undershoot. Table II shows that in Strategy 3,
most of the expected annual unserved energy (15.3 MWh/year)
is caused by the high and only 3.9 MWh/year is caused
by the low-frequency level. It is obvious that an empirical pro-
cedure for choosing the proper setting of relays, especially the
set value for , cannot be easily determined.
When Strategy 1 is applied, the system turbines and the entire
system may often operate at a high risk level, since:
• the minimum frequency undershoot is very big and close
to the units u.f. protection trip levels, which means that
there is possibility even for a black-out;
• the minimum residual frequency is 48.72 Hz, which means
that there is a 1.28-Hz deviation from 50 Hz while the
corresponding value of Strategy 3 is almost half;
• the maximum system critical time is very high (19.25 s),
while in Strategy 3 it is only 0.32 s;
• the accumulated turbine critical time is 190.3 min, which
is 4.4 times higher than the respective time for Strategy 3.
The distributions of frequency undershoot values in Strategy
1 and in Strategy 3 are presented in Fig. 6. The majority of the
frequency undershoots (about 25%) are in the range between
49.6 and 49.7 Hz. It can be noticed that the two histograms are
similar in the area near the nominal frequency value (safe re-
gion), since the corresponding disturbances do not activate the
u.f. protection, while there is a substantial difference in the area
of frequencies with lower values (unsafe region).
Fig. 7 presents a simulation of a typical day assuming
Strategy 3, by showing the average frequency undershoot
values for each hour of the day. The most critical period, with
the deepest u.f. events, occurs early in the morning. The shape
of this histogram follows the shape of the daily load curve.
This is reasonable because when the load demand is low, a
generating unit outage results in a higher system disturbance.
Fig. 8 shows the expected number of load shedding events
assuming Strategies 2 and 3. In Strategy 2, the most probable
values of load shedding are between 17–23 MW, with a fre-
quency of about 1.2 occurrences per year. In Strategy 3, the most
probable value of load shedding is 13 MW (about 1 occurrence
per year).
When a higher spinning reserve level is applied, the in-
dices that are related to the system stability and the safety
of individual turbines do not change substantially while the
indices concerning the unserved energy and power quality
decrease. In Strategy 3, the expected annual unserved en-
ergy is 19.2 MWh/year, while in Strategy 4 it is reduced to
6.2 MWh/year. Also, the expected number of annual temporary
interruptions and the expected load not supplied due to tempo-
rary interruptions are lower in Strategy 4. The system frequency
drop depends mainly on the turbines primary regulation and
the u.f. protection while the available spinning reserve affects
mainly the unserved energy and the power quality. The slightly
better indices concerning the system stability are caused from
THALASSINAKIS AND DIALYNAS: MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION METHOD
Fig. 6. Histograms of system frequency undershoot values in Strategies 1 and 3.
Fig. 7. Average frequency undershoot values for each hour of a day in Strategy 3.
Fig. 8. Histograms of load shedding events in Strategies 2 and 3.
the fact that a higher spinning reserve level sometimes requires
an additional generating unit to be in operation, which also
contributes positively when a unit outage occurs. Fig. 9 shows
the histograms of the maximum load restoration time assuming
minimum spinning reserve levels of 10% and 15% and by
taking into account only the long load interruptions (duration
longer than 2 min). The most probable maximum load restora-
tion time is about 15 min for minimum spinning reserve of 10%
and 12 min for the minimum spinning reserve level of 15%
with a number of events 0.38 and 0.2 occ./year, respectively.
The application of the developed computational method on
a typical autonomous power system has shown that additional
load shedding does not necessarily imply smaller frequency un-
dershoot values. A proper choice of the relays parameters can
2051
achieve better results. In general, the use of in a way that
most of the load shedding is realized close to the nominal fre-
quency (e.g., 49.9 Hz) would contribute toward the optimum so-
lution. It has also been demonstrated that the spinning reserve
level has a very small impact on the system stability but it af-
fects its reliability performance substantially.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper describes an efficient computational method,
which is based on the chronological Monte Carlo approach for
determining the settings of the u.f. load shedding relays and the
level of the available spinning reserve in autonomous power
systems. The main objective of the method is to calculate an
appropriate set of indices and distributions, which quantify the
respective system performance. These indices can be a useful
tool for comparing alternative strategies by taking into account
the amount of load to be shed and the corresponding risk for
the system stability. The method and the associated computer
program can also be used to assess different spinning reserve
policies by comparing the unserved energy and power quality
(temporary interruptions) indices. Therefore, the utility engi-
neers can adopt a specific strategy, which meets the respective
utility criteria and policies concerning the allowable u.f. levels,
the permitted generating units stress, the unserved energy and
the desired power quality performance.
2052
Fig. 9. Histograms of maximum load restoration time for minimum spinning reserve 10% and 15%.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2004
Emmanuel Thalassinakis (M’01) received the electrical engineering Diploma
from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens, Greece, in
1980. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree.
From 1983 to 1991, he was with the Ministry of the Environment, and since
1991, he has been with the Public Power Corporation of Greece, Iraklion.
He is head of the Crete and Rhodes Section of the Islands Department.
His professional and research interests are reliability, high-voltage transmis-
sion technology, power system operation, and contamination of high-voltage
insulators.
Mr. Thalassinakis is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece and
CIGRE.
Evangelos N. Dialynas (M’79–SM’90) received the electrical engineering
Diploma from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens,
Greece, in 1975, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in 1977 and 1979, respec-
tively, from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology,
Manchester, U.K.
He is presently a Professor in Electrical Power Systems at the School of Elec-
trical and Computer Engineering, NTUA. His research interests are reliability
modeling and evaluation, power system probabilistic assessment, power system
operation, and computer applications of power systems.
Dr. Dialynas is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece and a Distin-
guished member of CIGRE.