Evidence for self-organized criticality in a time series of electric power system blackouts

We analyze a 15-year time series of North American electric power transmission system blackouts for evidence of self-organized criticality (SOC). The probability distribution functions of various measures of blackout size have a power tail and rescaled range analysis of the time series shows moderat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. 1, Fundamental theory and applications Fundamental theory and applications, 2004-09, Vol.51 (9), p.1733-1740
Main Authors: Carreras, B.A., Newman, D.E., Dobson, I., Poole, A.B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blackout
Circuits
Contracts
Dynamical systems
Dynamics
Electric power generation
Electric power systems
Electric power transmission
Laboratories
Power measurement
Power system analysis computing
Power system dynamics
Power system modeling
Power system reliability
Power transmission
Probability distribution
Time series
Time series analysis
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Summary:We analyze a 15-year time series of North American electric power transmission system blackouts for evidence of self-organized criticality (SOC). The probability distribution functions of various measures of blackout size have a power tail and rescaled range analysis of the time series shows moderate long-time correlations. Moreover, the same analysis applied to a time series from a sandpile model known to be self-organized critical gives results of the same form. Thus, the blackout data seem consistent with SOC. A qualitative explanation of the complex dynamics observed in electric power system blackouts is suggested.
ISSN:1549-8328
1057-7122
1558-0806
DOI:10.1109/TCSI.2004.834513