1. Introduction
Currently, power grids are becoming increasingly interconnected and the operating environment is becoming more complex [
1]. With the development of interconnected systems, the use of new controls to improve normal and emergency operations has brought sustainability issues to the forefront to a greater extent than previous years [
2]. The addition of new energy sources to the grid, such as photovoltaics and wind power, makes it more vulnerable [
3,
4]. When the power grid has serious faults, or when it suffers from large disturbances, the stability of the power grid is negatively impacted, and it can even lead to system collapse. Serious economic losses and safety-related accidents can be avoided if effective safety measures are taken in time [
5,
6]. A rapid and accurate evaluation of the transient stability, and an adjustment after transient instability, is an important area of research, and it is conducive to the sustainable development of power systems.
Time-domain simulations and the direct method are two traditional methods for transient stability analysis [
7]. In essence, the time-domain simulation method obtains the time solution by calculating differential equations of perturbed motion. Then, the stability of the system is judged using the relative angle of each generator rotor [
8]. The direct method is also called the Transient Energy Function. It judges the system stability in accordance with the energy function [
7,
8]. The Lyapunov stability theory is an important theory for the direct method, and it was applied to the study of power systems’ transient stability by Magnusson in 1947. During the development of the direct method, the following factions were formed: Controlling Unstable Equilibrium Point (CUEP) [
9], Potential Energy Boundary Surface (PEBS) [
10], Boundary of Stability Region Based Controlling Equilibrium Point (BCU) [
11], and the Extended Equal Area Criterion (EEAC) [
12,
13]. At present, the time-domain simulation method is the most mature method for transient stability analysis, and it has been widely used in various fields [
14,
15,
16,
17].
Critical clearing time (
CCT) is one of the reference parameters for transient stability; it has been researched and analyzed using the direct method or time-domain simulation method. Naoto, Ardyono, and Hironori proposed a method to directly obtain the
CCT based on boundary value problems; this is an accurate method, and it can detect the
CCT of various unstable modes [
18]. Thanh, Surour, Mohamed, and Konstantin described techniques for screening transient stability emergencies without relying on any time-domain simulations. They obtained the algebraic expression of the lower boundary of the critical clearance time. In addition, various methods have been proposed to extend the
CCT to enhance the transient stability of power systems [
19,
20].
With the development of artificial intelligence, it has been applied to the evaluation of power systems’ transient stability. Researchers have developed artificial intelligence methods based on direct methods and time-domain simulations [
21,
22,
23]. In 1989, Sobajic and Pao applied artificial neural networks (ANN) to the evaluation of the
CCT of power systems. The results showed that the error between the estimated
CCT and the actual
CCT was very small [
24]. This is the earliest combination of ANN and
CCT. In 1997, Hobson and Allen pointed out the limitations of ANN applied to
CCT prediction methods [
25]. Amjady and Majedi used a new hybrid intelligent system to predict transient stability [
26]. Pawlak and Annakkage utilized the least absolute selection and shrinkage operator (LASSO) to predict
CCT [
27]. Lv, Pawlak, and Annakkage proposed an additive regression model to forecast
CCT, which shows that this method has a higher prediction accuracy than LASSO [
28]. The abovementioned methods all improve the speed of
CCT analysis in the power system; however, there are some shortcomings, such as inadequate fitting, falling into local optimization, and the inability to parallelize and retrain when the system mode changes.
This paper uses the broad learning system (BLS) for the prediction and adjustment of CCT in power systems. BLS is an effective linear regression method. It is a plane network model which aims to solve the shortcomings of large training errors in single-layer feedforward neural networks and in the complex structures of deep neural networks. It also has the potential to engage in incremental learning. As a result of this capability, BLS does not need to completely retrain the network once the network structure is extended.
This paper proposes a prediction and correction model for the CCT using BLS. The prediction model is used to predict the CCT of different fault lines. When the CCT is lower than the operation time of the relay protection device, the correction model is used to adjust the CCT.
The rest of this article is as follows:
Section 2 briefly reviews the traditional calculation method for the
CCT and introduces the BLS prediction model.
Section 3 introduces the optimization model for the
CCT. In
Section 4, the proposed method is verified using a 4-machine 11-node system and a 10-machine 39-node system. Finally, the conclusion is given in
Section 5.
4. Case Study
In this section, the formation of the data set and the two evaluation indicators of the prediction model will be introduced. Then, the tests that were performed on the BLS prediction model and correction control model will be discussed. This section will discuss the 4-machine 11-node system and 10-machine 39-node system that were used for the experiments.
Figure 4 shows diagrams of the two systems, respectively.
4.1. Data Set
To simulate the real-time changing operation mode of the power system, the reference value is multiplied by a random coefficient within a certain range [
37,
38]. The load power of each node (
and
), and the power of each generator node (
and
), varies randomly within a certain range, as shown in
Table 1. Within the data set, the input state variables include the voltage amplitude and the phase angle. Therefore, the system data set with 4-machines 11-nodes has 36-dimensional input variables and 1-dimensional output variables, and the system dataset with 10-machine and 39-nodes has 122-dimensional input variables and 1-dimensional output variables. The sample data set consists of the training set used to build the BLS model and the test set used to validate the model. The ratio of the training set to the test set is 9:1.
4.2. Evaluation Index
In this paper, the Root Mean Square Error (
RMSE) and Symmetric Mean Absolute Percentage Error (
SMAPE) were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the model [
37].
SMAPE avoids the disadvantage of
MAPE, which is that it is not being computable when the output is 0.
RMSE was used to evaluate the deviation degree and error distribution of the model, whereas
SMAPE was used to evaluate the mean value of the deviation degree error of the model. The calculation formula is expressed as:
where
n represents the number of test samples,
represents the true value of the
k-th sample, and
represents the predicted value of the
k-th sample.
4.3. Prediction and Analysis of a Single Faulty Line
In the power system, when under the same running state, the three-phase short circuit fault of different lines produces different
CCTs. Therefore, the prediction model was used to predict the different faulty lines of the 4-machine 11-node system and to verify the performance of the prediction model. Each line had 4050 rows of training set data and 450 rows of test set data. Each row had 36-dimensional input variables and 1-dimensional output variables. The
CCT prediction results of different fault lines are shown in
Table 2. As there were two parallel branches of lines 8–10, the two branches of lines 8–10 were tested separately. Lines 8*–10 indicated that the fault occurred on node 8, and lines 8–10* indicated that the fault occurred on node 10. It is assumed that the fault occurred at the end of the line unless specifically stated.
To observe the predictive performance of the BLS model,
Figure 5 shows the comparison between the actual
CCT and the predicted
CCT of each faulty line, where the horizontal axis is the actual value and the vertical axis is the predicted value. The closer the point in the figure is to the blue diagonal line, the smaller the error between the predicted and measured values.
In
Figure 5,
Figure 5a–h are the BLS model prediction performance diagrams of line 1 to line 8, respectively. As is evident from
Table 2, the maximum
RMSE value for different faulty lines is line 1, but the maximum value is only 0.0867. This indicates that the deviation degree and error distribution of the proposed BLS model are very small. There is only a small error between the predicted value and the true value. The maximum value of
SMAPE is 6.98%, with regard to line 1, which is less than 10%. This indicates that the mean value of the deviation degree error of the model is small. The training time of all lines is less than 0.02 s, and the calculation speed is fast. As shown in
Figure 5, the points of all faulty lines are near the diagonal line, with only a few slightly deviating from the blue diagonal line. This means that the error between the predicted value and the real value is small, and the model exhibits a good degree of accuracy, which is consistent with the data in
Table 2.
In this paper, a 10-machine 39-node system was used to verify the prediction model again. Each line had 900 rows of training set data and 100 rows of test set data. Each row had 122-dimensional input variables and 1-dimensional output variables. The results are shown in
Table 3 and
Figure 6.
In
Figure 6,
Figure 6a–d are the BLS model prediction performance diagrams of line 4, line 27, line 32, and line 34, respectively. As is evident from
Table 3, for different fault lines, the maximum
RMSE value is the
RMSE value of line 27, but the maximum value is only 0.0119. The maximum value of
SMAPE is the
RMSE of line 4, with a value of 4.31%, which is less than 10%. The training time of all the lines is less than 0.02 s, and the calculation speed is fast. As is evident from
Figure 5, the points of all the faulty lines are near the diagonal line, with only a few points deviating slightly from the blue diagonal line. As shown in
Table 3 and
Figure 6, regarding the 10-machine 39-node system, the BLS model still has the advantages of a fast training speed and a high degree of precision.
According to the experimental results above, the BLS model has the ability to predict the CCT of a single faulty line well. The error between the predicted value and the real value is small, which shows that the model has a high level of accuracy, and that it can be applied to predict the CCT of a single faulty line.
4.4. Hybrid Faulty Line Prediction and Analysis
The above prediction model is based on the premise that the system first determines the fault line, and then it imports the data set into the BLS model for training and prediction. Under the same operating conditions, imposed by the system, different faulty lines will generate different CCT. To verify that the BLS model can accurately judge the CCT of different lines and make accurate predictions, the above simulation experiment was changed.
The adjustment method is as follows: add one-dimensional data to the same system’s running data to distinguish between different faulty lines.
where
N is the line number. Different faulty lines have different
N values to distinguish between different fault lines.
The input for the different faulty lines was the same, except for the
N values. Then, the input of all fault lines and corresponding
CCT were formed into composed o data sets and imported into the BLS model for training and testing to verify the identification ability and prediction accuracy. The simulation results are shown in
Table 4 and
Figure 7.
In the mixed fault experiment of the two systems, the
RMSE values are 0.1099 and 0.0349, respectively. The values of the
SMAPE were 6.26% and 8.36%, respectively, and the
SMAPE values were all less than 10%. This indicates that the deviation degree and error distribution of the
CCT prediction model, based on BLS, were very small. Moreover, there is only a minimal error between the predicted value and the real value. It also shows that the deviation degree of the model was small, which is acceptable.
Figure 7 also shows that the
CCT prediction model, based on BLS, produces small errors and a high degree of precision. The BLS prediction model can quickly distinguish between different faulty lines and make accurate judgments when different lines fail during the same operation.
In addition,
RMSE is used to evaluate the model in Ref. [
28]. In Ref. [
28], the minimum
RMSE is 0.663, thus indicating that the prediction performance of the additive regression model is accurate, and that it has a higher prediction accuracy than Lasso. However, the maximum
RMSE value in this paper is only 0.1099, which is smaller than 0.663. This shows that the BLS model is accurate for the prediction of
CCT.
4.5. Optimal Adjustment Model Experiment of a Single Faulty Line
The relay protection device cuts the faulty line out when the line fails. The relay protection device needs a reaction time during this process. When the
CCT is less than the reaction time of the relay protection device, it cannot remove the faulty line in time. This will affect the stable operation of the power system. Therefore, we propose an optimal adjustment model, based on BLS, which adjusts the
CCT to be higher than, or equal to, the operation time of the relay protection device, while ensuring that the generators undergo minimal changes. This paper uses a 4-machine 11-node system to verify the optimal adjustment model of BLS. The adjustment process is shown in
Figure 7, which uses faulty lines 6–9 as an example. The initial predicted value of the
CCT of faulty lines 6–9 is 0.163255 s, and the single-variable sensitivity of each parameter is shown in
Table 5.
To visually observe the sensitivity comparison between each parameter, the sensitivity of each parameter is shown in
Figure 8. Red represents negative sensitivity, that is, a negative correlation and blue represents positive sensitivity, which is a positive correlation. When the faulty line was cut at 0.2 s, it produced a swing curve caused by the generator rotor, as shown in
Figure 9.
Figure 9a shows that the swing curve diverges before adjustment. This indicates that the system was unstable at this time, with a
CCT less than 0.2 s.
Figure 9b shows that the swing curve fluctuated within a certain range after adjustment. This indicates that the system was stable and the
CCT was adjusted to 0.2 s or higher. As is evident from
Table 5 and
Figure 8,
had the lowest degree of sensitivity, whereas
had the highest degree of sensitivity. In addition, it is evident from
Table 6 that
exhibited the greatest power change, whereas
exhibited the smallest power change. This shows that the BLS optimal adjustment model is effective.
Once again, to prove the universal validity of the BLS optimal adjustment model, fault lines 26–29 in the 10-machine 39-node system were used to verify the model. The sensitivity parameters of the active power of each generator in the 10-machine 39-node system are shown in
Table 7 and
Figure 10. The predicted value of the initial
CCT of faulty lines 28–29 is 0.184748 s. When the
CCT was adjusted to 0.2 s, changes in the active power of each generator occurred and are shown in
Table 8. The swing curve of the generator rotor, after the fault line was cut at 0.2 s, is shown in
Figure 11.
As is evident from
Figure 11, after adjustment, the system ran stably when the faulty line was removed at 0.2 s. With similar results to the 4-machine 11-node system,
Table 7 and
Table 8 show the validity of the model.
In accordance with the experimental results of the 10-machine 39-node system, the BLS optimal adjustment model can adjust the CCT to a threshold that is higher than, or equal to, 0.2 s for different systems and different fault lines. Therefore, the optimal BLS adjustment model is suitable for the prediction analysis and adjustment of the CCT.
4.6. Optimal Adjustment Model Experiment of Multiple Faulty Lines
Regarding the abovementioned adjustment, the CCT of only one fault line was considered to be lower than the action time of the relay protection device. During the actual operation of the power system, the CCT of many lines is likely to be lower than the operation time of the relay protection device.
Experiments were conducted to verify whether the optimal adjustment model can adjust the CCT of multiple lines to be higher than, or equal to, the operation time of the relay protection device. The following experiments use the 4-machine 11-node system and 10-machine 39-node system.
In the 4-machine 11-node system, the lines with a
CCT lower than the threshold were lines 5–7, lines 6–9, and lines 8–10. The changes in the active power parameters of the generator are shown in
Table 9, and the changes in the
CCT of different fault lines are shown in
Table 10. The swing curve of the generator rotor, after the fault line was cut at 0.2 s, is shown in
Figure 12.
In a 10-machine 39-node system, lines with a
CCT lower than the threshold were lines 26–27 and lines 26–28. The changes in the active power parameters of the generator are shown in
Table 11, and the changes in the
CCT of different fault lines are shown in
Table 12. The swing curve, after the fault line was cut at 0.2 s, is shown in
Figure 13.
As shown in
Table 10 and
Table 12, the
CCT of the different lines all increased from less than 0.2 s to more than 0.2 s, and the error between the predicted value and the real value was about 10%. In
Figure 12,
Figure 12a,c,e are the swing curves of lines 5–7, 6–9, and 8–10, which were removed at 0.2 s before adjustment, respectively.
Figure 12b,d,f are the swing curves of lines 5–7, 6–9, and 8–10, which were removed at 0.2 s after adjustment, respectively. In
Figure 13,
Figure 13a,c are the swing curves of lines 26–27 and 26–28, which were removed at 0.2 s before adjustment, respectively.
Figure 13b,d are the swing curves of lines 26–27 and 26–28, removed at 0.2 s after adjustment, respectively.
As is evident from
Table 9 and
Table 11, the power of all the generators changed during the adjustment process. It is evident from
Table 10 and
Table 12 that the
CCT of all lines increased from less than the threshold, which was 0.2, to more than 0.2, no matter the predicted value or the actual value. In addition, the error between the actual value and the predicted value was within 10%.
As shown in
Figure 12 and
Figure 13, all of the line swing curves diverge before adjustment, thus indicating that the system was in an unstable state. After adjustment, the swing curve fluctuated within a certain range, thus indicating that the system was stable, and that the
CCT had been adjusted to 0.2 s or higher.
As per the results of the abovementioned experiments, the model can adjust the CCT of multiple lines to be higher than, or equal to, the operation time of the relay protection device in order to satisfy power system stability.
5. Conclusions
Regarding the transient stability analysis of power systems, CCT has always been an important research object. This paper proposes a prediction and correction method for CCT, based on the BLS. The BLS model is used to predict CCT. The adjustment of the time variable, CCT, is achieved by changing the input variable. This method can improve the speed of CCT calculation and system adjustment compared with traditional methods. The BLS model was tested using a 4-machine 11-node system and a 10-machine 39-node system. The experimental results show that the BLS model can predict the CCT speed quickly, and the training speed can fall below 0.2 s in a single faulty line. It can distinguish between different faulty lines in a hybrid faulty line experiment, and it can produce accurate results, which is effective for different systems.
During the optimal adjustment model experiment, when the CCT is less than the threshold, the BLS optimal adjustment model can calculate the optimum adjustment scheme. Moreover, it can adjust the CCT to a value that is higher than, or equal to, the threshold, thus indicating that the optimal BLS model can be used to adjust the power system and improve the stable operation of the power system. Therefore, the BLS model can satisfy the prediction analysis and adjustment of the CCT, and it confirms that it is a practical analysis method.
The BLS model also has an incremental learning function. When new data is added to the model, the weight of the system can be updated quickly without needing to completely retrain the model; this is suitable for today’s rapidly changing power system network. Therefore, the incremental learning model of BLS should be studied further in the future, so that the BLS model can be better applied to the transient stability analysis of power systems.