Power system security is the ability of power system to survive in looming disturbances condi-

tions (contingencies), without hampering to the safety, reliability and customer service. Power
system security refers to strength or robustness of any system to imminent disturbances and it
depends on system operating conditions and also on contingent probable conditions. When the
system is of insufficient security, it gets exposed to catastrophic and system failure. So it is of
paramount importance in having a safe, reliable, continuous and economic operating condition of
power system.
Power system security is the probability of systems operating conditions which should remain
within the tolerable ranges. This aspect plays an important role in point of view its operations
and planning. Following are few points which make the power reliability and safety over a long
run. Firstly, power system should be properly designed with taking security as main concern.
Secondly, regular monitoring during operation, maintaining with acceptable ranges is second
most concern. Thirdly, good engineering is required to achieve these goals which mainly rely on
the usage of tools used for power system analysis. The changes that are occurring in the envi-
ronment have finely tuned the requirement of power system security analysis and its assessments
and has also changed the analysis tools of power system.
Power system consists of numerous of electrical based devices and is a complex network in it-
self. And failure of any of these devices during operating condition hampers the continuity of
operation, security, safety and thus leads to outages, thus influencing security of power system.
Thus power system security is an important part of power system. The most important aspect is
evaluation of contingency, which leads to bus limit violations, transmission line overloads during
the operating conditions. Critical contingencies must be identified firstly and fast to ensure se-
cure, reliable and continuous operation.
As a major and important part of power system security, operational engineers need to study the
effect of outages and contingency on power system in terms of severity. Power flow or load flow
are important part of this analysis. They are required to have proper operation, scheduling, and
controlling of existing and operating power system and also on proper planning for future expan-
sion.
Contingency selection or contingency screening is a process in which probable and potential crit-
ical contingencies are identified for which it requires consideration of each line or generator out-
age. This method is very time consuming as it does not suit real time requirement, as real time
systems are large systems and requires lot of time for computation.
To solve this problem a number of algorithms have been developed which are classified into two
methods. One of those method is the Performance Index (PI) which is based on calculation the PI
values and ranking them accordingly to quantify the severity for each case.
The other method is based on approximate power flow which is used to eliminate those critical
contingencies. This method is known as screening method.
There are number of methods for evaluation of contingency of power system. AC load flow and
mathematical calculations are mostly used in most of the methods.
For contingency screening several methods have been developed. The most widely used method
for calculation of the performance index is based on the conventional method known as Newton
Raphson load flow program [7]. The modern power system is a complex network and due to its
complexity and large scale networks, contingency analysis should be powerful and computation
should be fast. The most important point for contingency or outage is that all possible outages
does not affect overload in lines and transformers, and does not affect voltage drops in different
nodes of system. Therefore it is not required to consider all possible outages for computer simu-
lation purpose. It is necessary to specify the outages which can cause the most of overloads and
voltage drops in the system for contingency screening. Such critical and potential contingencies
should be quickly identified for further evaluation process in detailed manner. thus contingency
selection is defined as the process of identifying these critical contingencies. Thus contingency
selection/screening or contingency ranking is projected so in order to rank those outages which
will violate the normal operating condition.
Contingency selection methods are based on Performance Index (PI), that may represent a line
overloading or bus voltage drop limit violation. Then sorting of performance index is done in
such a way contingencies are ranked according to their severity. In these last few years, a lot of
work has been done in this part which consists of selection of the potential contingencies cases
by using ranking methods or screening methods. Bounding methods [3], Distribution methods
[7], Expert and new method for contingency selection [7-12], Neural Network [15-20] and other
latest mathematical techniques have been used in the indirect calculation of MW flow violation
ranking. The recent developments using Artificial Neural Network have brought lot of advance-
ment in the speed of contingency screening [18].
The growth of large interconnected power systems demands a high degree of security for normal
operation. The primary aim of an electric power system is to provide adequate uninterrupted
supply of electrical power to customer premises within the set limits of frequency and voltage
levels. The current trend towards deregulation and the participation of many players in the power
market are contributing to the decrease in the security margin.
Power System Security is defined as the ability of the power system to remain secure without
serious consequences to any pre-selected list of credible contingencies. The most common opera-
tional problems are transmission equipment overloads and inadequate voltage levels at system
buses. The process of detecting, whether the system remains in secure (normal) or insecure
(emergency) state, is called power system security assessment. Secure state implies that the load
is satisfied and no limit violations will occur under present operating conditions and in the pres-
ence of unforeseen contingencies. Violation of any security related inequality constraints pushes
the system to emergency or insecure state, thereby initiating corrective actions to be taken to
bring the system back to secure state. Power system security problems are classified as static and
dynamic. Static security problem evaluates the system steady state performance for all possible
postulated contingencies, whereas dynamic analysis pertains to long term behavior of the system
of the order of few minutes under transient disturbances.
A power system at any time can never be totally secure. It is always possible to devise a se-
quence of events that will lead to a total or partial collapse of the system. Single contingencies
are more frequent than multiple contingencies. Power system security poses an important issue in
planning and operation stages of a power system. Security assessment, basically, deals with
evaluating the ability of the system to continue to provide service in the event of an unforeseen
contingency. Conventional method of security evaluation involves solving full AC load flow
equations and transient stability analysis of the current system state by time domain simulation
program.
Security assessment is a major concern in planning, design and operation stages of electric power
systems. Security assessment consists of three modes, static, transient and dynamic. The tradi-
tional method used in static security analysis involves solving full AC load flow equations for
each contingency scenario. This is highly time consuming and inadequate for real time applica-
tions. Security assessment is the analysis performed to determine whether, and to what extent,
the system is reasonably safe from serious interference to its operation. Occurrence of certain
severe disturbances may cause the system to go to an undesirable emergency state, if the system
security is not well defined beforehand. Hence, effective control of power systems demands a
quick security evaluation of their operating states. Conventional method of security evaluation,
performed by simulation program, involves long computer time and inadequate for real time ap-
plications.
Security assessment is the analysis performed to determine whether, and to what extent, the sys-
tem is reasonably safe from serious interference to its operation. It is duty of the system operator
to maintain the system in a normal state. Under certain conditions, occurrence of some severe
disturbances may cause the system to go to emergency state. Under such situations, the operator
must take immediate control actions to retain the system in normal operating state, wherein sys-
tem security needs to be well defined. Hence, effective control of power systems demands a
quick security evaluation of their operating states.