Analysis of the structural vulnerability of the interconnected power grid of continental Europe with the Integrated Power System and Unified Power System based on extended topological approach

Power systems as one of the key infrastructures play a crucial role in any country's economy and social life. A large-scale blackout can affect all sectors in a society such as industrial, commercial, residential, and essential public services. However, the frequency of large-scale blackouts across the world is not being reduced, although advanced technology and huge investment have been applied into power systems. Given a single blackout, it is possible to analyze the causes with the traditional engineering methods. What we want to do is not to explain the causes of blackouts but to find what are the most critical elements of the power system to improve the resilience of the system itself. As blackout can happen in different load conditions, we do not want a method that depends on the load/generation level. We want a method independent from these factors: This is the structural perspective. When the interconnection between European and Russian power grids will create the largest interconnected power grid throughout the world in terms of the scale, transmission distance, and involved countries, analyzing the vulnerability of a large-scale power grid will be useful to maintain its reliable and secure operation. To analyze the vulnerability of the interconnected power grid, in this article, we first created the interconnected transmission network between continental Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Baltic countries; then, the structural vulnerability of the interconnected power grid was analyzed from a topological point of view using our proposed extended topological method, which incorporates some electrical engineering characteristics into complex network methodology. We found that these power grids of continental Europe, the Baltic states, and the CIS countries can benefit from the interconnection because the interconnected power grid can not only improve the overall network performance of these power grids in the Baltic states and the CIS countries but also increase their structural robustness.