Eur. Phys. J. B 46, 101-107 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00237-9

Modeling cascading failures in the North American power grid

¹ Department of Physics, University of Missouri-Rolla, MO 65409, USA
² Scuola Superiore di Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
³ Department of Physics and Huck Institutes of Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica ed Astronomia, Università di Catania and INFN, 95124 Catania, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a ralbert@phys.psu.edu

Received: 17 February 2005
Published online: 8 August 2005

Abstract

The North American power grid is one of the most complex technological networks, and its interconnectivity allows both for long-distance power transmission and for the propagation of disturbances. We model the power grid using its actual topology and plausible assumptions about the load and overload of transmission substations. Our results indicate that the loss of a single substation can result in up to loss of transmission efficiency by triggering an overload cascade in the network. The actual transmission loss depends on the overload tolerance of the network and the connectivity of the failed substation. We systematically study the damage inflicted by the loss of single nodes, and find three universal behaviors, suggesting that of the transmission substations lead to cascading failures when disrupted. While the loss of a single node can inflict substantial damage, subsequent removals have only incremental effects, in agreement with the topological resilience to less than node loss.