Abstract
We model power grids as graphs with heavy-tailed sinks, which represent demand from cities, and study cascading failures on such graphs. Our analysis links the scale-free nature of blackout sizes to the scale-free nature of city sizes, contrasting previous studies suggesting that this nature is governed by self-organized criticality. Our results are based on a new mathematical framework combining the physics of power flow with rare event analysis for heavy-tailed distributions, and are validated using various synthetic networks and the German transmission grid.
- Received 12 September 2019
- Revised 7 June 2020
- Accepted 10 July 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.058301
© 2020 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Focus
City Sizes May Affect Blackout Probabilities
Published 31 July 2020
The probabilities of electricity blackouts may be influenced by the sizes of cities more than by the details of power grids.
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