Novel approach for assessing the maximum load capacity of buses within a power transmission network

Abstract

Achieving a balance between the satisfaction of energy requirements and adherence to environmental and social regulations stipulated in international agreements necessitates the rigorous management of existing electricity systems by electricity network operators, thereby ensuring that thermal and stability limits are not exceeded. Consequently, the assessment of load bus maximum capacity (LBMC) at any given load bus (LB) becomes imperative for ensuring the reliability and efficiency of electricity transmission networks. The extant literature on the subject of assessing LBMC in electrical networks either fails to take into account the combined effects on such networks of their various load points or, if it does, it is computationally intensive. The approach proposed in this paper involves a simplified method for assessing the LBMC for each of the LBs in the network. This is achieved to ensure that the combined effect of increasing the load on each of these buses does not compromise the load planning determined by a given network performance index, either during normal operation or in the event of a malfunction. The findings substantiate the efficacy of the proposed methodology, which facilitates the reliable estimation of LBMC. The reliability of this approach is ensured by the selection of a reliable performance indicator, which in our case is the complex stability index for transmission lines (CSITL).