Stability and Control-Annurev 2022 PDF
Stability and Control-Annurev 2022 PDF
Stability and Control-Annurev 2022 PDF
Autonomous Systems
Stability and Control of
Power Grids
Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 2022.5:689-716. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
689
1. INTRODUCTION
Power grids are giant, complex systems where the loads (power consumers) receive an electricity
Bus: a conductor in a supply from generators (power sources) via power transfer over the underlying power networks.
grid maintained at a Instability events in power grids are unacceptable to society. The consequent blackouts can cause
specific voltage and huge economic losses and can even threaten the security of a society. Therefore, stability and
capable of carrying a
control have been issues of fundamental importance since the birth of power grids.
high current, making a
common connection Stability assessment is challenging due to the nonlinearity and complexity of the dynamical
between several behavior of power grids. Although a time domain simulation can provide details on system tra-
components (e.g., jectories before, during, and after a disturbance, it is unable to explain why the system is stable
generators and loads); or unstable under that disturbance. The stability theory of power grids was established by using
it is also referred to as
mathematical tools from dynamical systems, such as Lyapunov’s first and second methods for local
Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 2022.5:689-716. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
a node in some
literature stability and estimation of stability regions, respectively. With the decentralization of power gen-
eration driven by renewable energy, the focus of stability analysis is shifting to the role of power
Line: a series
network structures and the development of distributed stability certificates with the help of more
component (e.g., a
advanced tools from network systems theory. Section 2 surveys these classic and recent results on
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transmission line or
transformer) that links power system stability.
two buses in a grid; it Frequency control and voltage control are two core control issues to maintain the secure and
is also referred to as a stable operation of power grids. Traditional power system control attempts to use both central-
branch in some
ized and decentralized control and focuses on transmission systems, partly due to the properties
literature
of traditional power systems, such as centralized power generation, unidirectional power flow,
and passive electricity distribution. However, the integration of renewables changes power sys-
tems from the traditional paradigm to a completely new one with distributed power generation,
bidirectional power flow, and active electricity distribution (1). Furthermore, as renewable energy
sources and other types of dynamical devices are connected to different voltage levels, new dynam-
ical behaviors will appear all over the grid. Power system control is therefore facing new challenges
and opportunities, which we briefly review in Section 3 from a control engineering point of view
and which include frequency control, voltage control, and control of microgrids (MGs).
Essentially, conventional studies on power grid stability and control use solutions that rely
heavily on mathematical models. Despite significant progress in the past few decades, these solu-
tions may not be useful in practical grids with extremely high complexity and salient variability.
Fortunately, thanks to the wide deployment of advanced information and communication tech-
nologies in today’s grids, massive amounts of operational data recording system-wide dynamics
in real time are available for stability analysis and control. This has helped to unlock the poten-
tial of data-based ideas and approaches, especially machine learning (ML) techniques, in tackling
conventionally challenging issues encountered by model-based methods. Hence, Section 4 selects
some representative research efforts to illustrate how data-based solutions effectively work on grid
stability analysis and control.
Power system stability is essentially a single problem, i.e., the system-wide stability; however,
treating the stability problem as such does not help to figure out the physical mechanism of the
various forms of instability that a power grid may undergo. According to the main system variable
in which the instability event is observed, power system stability is generally classified into rotor
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angle stability, voltage stability, and frequency stability (2). This classification corresponds to the
concept of partial stability in stability theory (3). We can also make specific assumptions about
each of the stability subcategories and obtain simplified models that capture the key factors in the
respective stability issues.
2.1.1. Rotor angle stability. Rotor angle stability, or simply angle stability, refers to the abil-
ity of synchronous machines—synchronous generators (SGs) and motors—in a power system to
remain in synchronism after being subjected to a disturbance (2). Angle stability is usually seen
as a generator-oriented issue and depends on whether each SG in the system can maintain or re-
store its equilibrium between electromagnetic torque and mechanical torque. Instability occurs
in the form of increasing angular swings of some generators, leading to their loss of synchronism
with other generators. Angle stability is a purely short-term problem, as the time frame of interest
is several seconds. According to the nature of the disturbances, it can be further classified into
small-disturbance angle stability and transient stability (i.e., large-disturbance angle stability).
Angle stability problems occur mainly in high-voltage transmission systems, where there is a
strong decoupling between P–θ and Q–V relations (4). Therefore, it is common in angle stability
analysis to assume a constant voltage magnitude Vi for each bus and focus only on the P–θ relation.
There are two major types of models for the study of angle stability: the network-reduced model
and the structure-preserving model. Let VG and VL denote the set of generator buses and set
of buses that are without generators and may connect loads. In the network-reduced model, all
loads are assumed to be constant impedances and incorporated into the admittance matrix. Based
on the bus partitioning
VG and VL , the admittance matrix can be accordingly partitioned into
YGG YGL −1
Y= YLG YLL
r
, and we obtain YGG = YGG − YGL YLL r
YLG by Kron reduction. The matrix YGG
represents the admittance matrix of the reduced network, where VL is eliminated and only VG
remains. This then leads to the following network-reduced model:
g
where Mi > 0 and Di > 0 denote the moment of inertia and damping coefficient of the generator,
respectively, and Gri j and Bri j denote the real and imaginary parts of [YGG
r
]i j , respectively. The
network-reduced model greatly reduces the problem dimension and has been commonly adopted,
especially in early works, which were done when powerful computers were unavailable. However,
n
Mi θ̈i + Di θ˙i = Pi − ViV j Bi j sin(θi − θ j ), i ∈ VG ,
j=1
n
Di θ˙i = Pi − ViV j Bi j sin(θi − θ j ), i ∈ VL ,
Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 2022.5:689-716. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
3.
j=1
where Bij = Re{Yij } denotes the line susceptance. In Equation 3, the second-order equation cap-
tures the swing dynamics of the generators, while the first-order equation captures the load fre-
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quency behavior under angle oscillations. In this model, the physical network structure of the
power system remains intact, and hence the physical line conductance Gij is reasonably assumed
to be zero. More importantly, there exist well-defined Lyapunov functions for the structure-
preserving model. This model has become popular in recent network science studies of power sys-
tem stability (7), and many variant models have been developed that include more detailed descrip-
tions of system components, such as generator flux decays and excitation controllers. We direct
readers to References 8 and 9 for an extensive survey of the family of structure-preserving models.
2.1.2. Frequency stability. Frequency stability refers to the ability of a power system to main-
tain a steady frequency following a severe system upset that results in a significant imbalance
between generation and load (2). It depends mainly on the ability to maintain or restore the bal-
ance between system generation and load, with minimum unintentional loss of load. Instability
occurs in the form of sustained frequency swings that lead to tripping of generating units and/or
loads. Frequency stability has both short- and long-term issues. The time frame of interest spans
from several seconds to several minutes, depending on the nature of the different controllers that
kick in after the occurrence of a power imbalance.
Since the frequency and angle deviations will not be very large during the time frame of fre-
quency stability analysis, linear models are commonly adopted. A typical example is the linear
structure-preserving model, which is obtained by substituting the approximations Vi = 1 and
sin (θ i − θ j ) = θ i − θ j into Equation 3. Unlike Equation 3, where the sinusoid functions induce
a substantial amount of nonlinearity and could cause instability, such a linear model is asymptot-
ically stable in general. Actually, a major topic in frequency stability is the design of controllers
that steer the angular frequency of each bus—say, θ˙i —back to the rated value (50 or 60 Hz) as
quickly as possible after the power imbalance. Note that the term frequency control is used more
often than the term frequency stability; since the study of frequency stability is oriented to control
techniques, we do not discuss it further in this section and instead elaborate the relevant results
in Section 3.
2.1.3. Voltage stability. Voltage stability refers to the ability of a power system to maintain
steady voltages close to their nominal values at all buses in the system after being subjected to a
disturbance (2). It is largely a load-oriented issue and depends mainly on the ability to maintain
or restore equilibrium between the load demand and the power supply that is transferred from
makes it very hard to figure out the mechanism of short-term voltage stability, and many questions
in this field remain open.
For long-term voltage stability, a topic of major concern is the condition that can guarantee the
existence and proper sensitivity behavior of a long-term equilibrium. Here, the proper sensitivity
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n
Pi = ViV j Gi j cos(θi − θ j ) + ViV j Bi j sin(θi − θ j ),
j=1
n
Qi = ViV j Gi j sin(θi − θ j ) − ViV j Bi j cos(θi − θ j ). 4.
j=1
The tuple (Pi , Qi , Vi , θ i ) satisfying the power flow equation represents a long-term operating equi-
librium, which is also known as a power flow solution. Given the Pi and Qi of each bus, power flow
analysis aims to check whether there exists a voltage solution (Vi , θ i ) and how the voltage solution
changes when a perturbation is applied to Pi or Qi . Power flow analysis can provide mechanism-
based explanations for some short- and long-term voltage instability phenomena; for example, the
voltage stability limit is indicated by a singularity point of the power flow Jacobian (11).
2.1.4. Converter-driven stability. The above stability concepts work in conventional power
grids, where the power sources are mainly fossil fuels and operate in the form of SGs that bring a
large moment of inertia. Consequently, stability problems regarding angle, voltage, and frequency
involve mainly electromechanical phenomena, the timescale of which is no less than 10−1 s. By
contrast, future grids will increasingly rely on renewable generation based on converter-interfaced
generators (CIGs), which have significantly different features. The dynamics of CIGs have a much
wider timescale that leads to cross-couplings with both the electromechanical dynamics of SGs
and the electromagnetic transients of the network (12). The CIGs may cause instability phenom-
ena over a wide spectrum, which can be classified into fast- and slow-interaction issues. Fast-
interaction instability is driven by the fast dynamic interactions of CIGs and other fast-response
components (e.g., electromagnetic dynamics of lines and SG stators). The frequency of unstable
oscillations can be up to several kilohertz (13). The models for fast-interaction stability prob-
lems need to include the inner (current) control loops of CIGs and network electromagnetics.
Slow-interaction instability is driven by the slow dynamic interactions of CIGs and other slow-
response components (e.g., the electromechanical dynamics of SGs). The models for this type of
2.2.1. Angle stability. The most classic theory of angle stability is the equal-area criterion for
a single-machine infinite-bus (SMIB) system. For generic systems with multiple generators, the
extensions have been made mainly based on the direct method in terms of Lyapunov functions,
otherwise called (transient) energy functions. The first Lyapunov function for angle stability anal-
ysis was proposed in the 1940s (16) and derived from the network-reduced model. The transfer
conductances need to be dropped in order to obtain a well-defined Lyapunov function; however,
as mentioned above, this operation may cause significant error in the stability assessment because
it effectively ignores the real power loads.
As stated above, the structure-preserving model allowed for the construction of rigorous Lya-
punov functions. A Lyapunov function is generally a sum of energies from system components;
for example, the Lyapunov function for Equation 3 consists of the kinetic energy of generators
and the potential energy of lines. Lyapunov functions have been established for many different
power system models that contain more detailed descriptions of generator and load dynamics (9).
The direct method estimates the stability region of the stable equilibrium point as a set of initial
points at which the Lyapunov function values are less than a critical energy. The critical energy is
usually given by the energy value at a certain unstable equilibrium point (UEP), while a different
choice of UEP leads to different features of the estimated stability region. For instance, the stabil-
ity region estimated by the closest UEP method is valid for checking the system stability after any
kind of disturbance, but this estimation is also highly conservative. By comparison, the stability
region estimated by the potential energy boundary surface method, the controlling UEP method,
and the boundary of the stability region–based controlling UEP method is much less conservative
but specific to the stability check after a particular disturbance. We direct readers to Reference 17
for a comprehensive study of these methods.
The extended equal-area criterion provides another viewpoint for critical energy. This method
projects the dynamics of a generic system into an equivalent SMIB system and then determines
the critical energy by applying the equal-area criterion to the SMIB system (18).
2.2.2. Voltage stability. Voltage stability theory has been established largely based on bifurca-
tion analysis. For instance, short-term voltage collapse is closely linked to the singularity-induced
bifurcation of the differential-algebraic equation model, which is also known as the impasse sur-
face (19). In addition, saddle-node bifurcation and limit-induced bifurcation are two common
load parameters using sensitivity methods (e.g., see 23, 24). This appears to be mainly because the maintained between
the load demand
concepts of angle stability and voltage stability are connected to the behaviors of generators and
and the power supply
loads, respectively. By contrast, the influence of the power network structure on stability has been from the bus via the
paid much less attention. Power network parameters are simply taken as some coefficients in the line
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respective models. The next subsection reviews some of the recent progress on stability theory,
Algebraic
focusing in particular on the role of network structure. connectivity: the
second smallest
eigenvalue of LG
2.3. Graph-Based Methods
Laplacian matrix:
The motivation of graph-based stability analysis and the obtained results on different stability LG = [Li j ] ∈ Rn×n ,
problems are discussed below. where Lij = Lji = −w ij
for (i, j) ∈ E, Lij =
Lji = 0 for (i,j) ∈/ E,
2.3.1. Power grids as dynamical networks. Let us first introduce some basic graph notations.
and Lii = − nj=1 Li j
A weighted undirected graph is denoted by G(V, E, W), where V denotes the set of nodes and
E ⊆ V × V denotes the set of edges, with |V| = n and |E| = l, and W = diag{wi j } ∈ Rl×l is the Cut set: a set of all
edges with one
diagonal matrix, with w ij being the weight of edge (i, j) ∈ E. Signed graphs are considered here,
endpoint in V1 and the
where the edge weights can be either positive or negative. other endpoint in V2 ,
According to these graph theory preliminaries, a power network induces a graph by treating denoted by E cut , where
buses as nodes and lines as edges. Furthermore, power system dynamics such as those described by V1 , V2 = φ is an
Equation 3 are essentially a nonuniform multirate Kuramoto model, where the network parame- arbitrary partition of V
such that V1 ∪ V2 = V
ters are embedded into the system dynamics. This is similar to another relevant subject, dynamical
and V1 ∩ V2 = φ
networks, which focuses on how collective behaviors are influenced by the structural properties
of the underlying network. For instance, a well-known result says that network synchronization is Effective resistance:
the effective resistance
achieved by a sufficiently large algebraic connectivity of the underlying network (25). Therefore,
between two nodes
it is natural to push the stability theory of power grids further in the direction of exploiting the i, j ∈ V, i = j, is
role of power network structure (26). In fact, some early works attempted to explore the impact of rGeff (i, j) =
network structural factors on stability problems (e.g., see 27, 28), but the lack of advanced tools at (ei − e j )T L†G (ei − e j ),
that time prevented further development. Thanks to the progress on graph theory and network where ei ∈ Rn is a
science (e.g., see 29–31), the past decade has witnessed the rise of graph-based stability analysis of vector where the ith
entry is one and all
power grids.
other entries are zero
2.3.2. Angle stability. Table 1 gives representative references related to the graph-based theory
of angle stability. It turns out that the graph Laplacian matrices and cut sets and their associated
concepts (e.g., effective resistance and algebraic connectivity) have essential importance in charac-
terizing angle stability under small and large disturbances. Here, the graph has the same topology
of the power network. Two kinds of edge weight assignments are adopted in the literature. One
takes the line susceptances as edge weights, i.e., w ij = Bij ; the corresponding Laplacian matrix is
simply denoted as LG in the following. The other includes the angle information at an equilib-
rium θ e ∈ Rn , i.e., wi j = ViV j Bi j cos(θie − θ ej ), which may be negative; the corresponding Laplacian
matrix is denoted as LG (θ e ) in the following.
The existence and local stability of equilibria, which are two fundamental issues in small-
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disturbance angle stability, are linked to graph concepts. Dörfler et al. (32) proposed a con-
dition in terms of LG for the existence of a unique and stable equilibrium within the region
{θi | |θi − θ j | < π2 , ∀(i, j) ∈ E}. Jafarpour & Bullo (33) further established an improved version of
this condition using cut set projection. A large algebraic connectivity defined over LG also guar-
antees the existence of stable equilibria (34). For the stability of equilibria, it has been proved that
an equilibrium θ e is hyperbolic and locally asymptotically stable if LG (θ e ) is positive semidefinite
and has only one zero eigenvalue (35, 36). An equilibrium is unstable if a cut set is formed by
lines with π2 < |θie − θ ej | < 3π 2
that induce negative weighted edges (37). The number of unstable
manifolds of a UEP can be described by linear matrix inequalities with respect to LG (θ e ) (38, 39).
Moreover, the local stability of an equilibrium is indicated by positive effective resistances defined
over LG (θ e ) (35, 36, 39).
Transient stability is also closely linked to these graph concepts. For a power grid with a negli-
gible moment of inertia (i.e., Mi /Di = ε), the stability region can be estimated in terms of LG and
algebraic connectivity (40). These results were later extended to a general case with nonnegligi-
ble inertia (41, 42). It turns out that a greater algebraic connectivity leads to a greater estimated
stability region. Song et al. (35) and Dörfler & Bullo (43) explored the relationship between tran-
sient stability and effective resistance and found that a better transient stability is indicated by a
smaller positive effective resistance. In addition, the properties of graph cut sets provide a theoret-
ical explanation for the common phenomenon that transient instability is initiated from the angle
separation across a cut set in the power network (36, 37). This phenomenon is usually supposed
to be related to generator behaviors, but this new finding indicates that it is attributable to the
structural properties of the underlying network.
2.3.3. Voltage stability. So far, the progress on graph-based voltage stability theory has been
made mainly in the existence of a power flow solution and the singularity of a power flow Jacobian,
which falls into the category of long-term voltage stability. Based on fixed-point theorems such as
Banach’s fixed-point theorem and Brouwer’s fixed-point theorem, some novel conditions for the
existence of power flow solution have been established (e.g., see 44–47). The admittance matrix,
which carries the structural information about the underlying power network, appears explicitly
in these conditions and indicates how the parameters of the power network, generators, and loads
accommodate a power flow solution as a long-term equilibrium. In addition, as a common type
of voltage stability limit, the power flow Jacobian singularity is closely linked to the properties of
the admittance matrix. A classic network-related result for SLIB systems says that a SLIB system
provide electricity to local consumers (i.e., the islanded mode) (50). When working in the grid-
connected mode, it can manage its own power balance, either delivering power to or absorbing
power from the utility grid as a generator or load. When working in the islanded mode, it can
continue to supply power to local loads in case of utility grid failures and hence can increase the
system resiliency.
Apart from the specific issues related to CIGs, MGs also inherit common stability issues from
conventional power grids regarding angle, frequency, and voltage dynamics (51). Hence, it is nat-
ural that MG stability has also been revealed to be closely connected to graph concepts such as the
algebraic connectivity of the conductance matrix (i.e., the real part of the admittance matrix). A
greater algebraic connectivity indicates a better stability in MGs (52, 53). In addition, Song et al.
(54) proved that an MG loses stability in the case of zero algebraic connectivity, and continuing
to add CIGs into the MG using a tree-like topology makes the algebraic connectivity approach
zero. This implies that the tree-like connection, which is the simplest and cheapest way to inte-
grate CIGs, is harmful to MG stability. By contrast, adding more lines to form loops in the MG
network, which helps to maintain the algebraic connectivity, is beneficial to stability.
Overall, the graph-based theory of angle stability has been established in a systematic manner,
and graph-based ideas are receiving increasing attention in voltage stability and MG stability.
Future results in this direction are expected not only to add to stability theory but also to facilitate
new control strategies by means of grid flexibility.
2.4.1. Distributed stability evaluation. The idea that a stability evaluation is supposed to be
done by centralized computation is almost never questioned. This is reasonable for a high-voltage
transmission grid because the stability condition usually requires system-wide data, and a control
center exists to collect all the required data and execute efficient computations. However, the
proliferation of distributed generation is decentralizing power grids into a huge number of small
autonomous subsystems. In this case, centralized computation is no longer adequate because it
is neither effective in communicating with the numerous subsystems nor friendly to the privacy
preservation of the subsystems.
of renewable energy means that it keeps injecting continuous disturbances into power grids, so
that the system may never reach a state of equilibrium. In this case, the stability analysis needs
to go beyond the existing equilibrium-based paradigm to capture this feature. Some recent works
have started rethinking the paradigm, replacing equilibria with consensus and related concepts in
the analysis. For instance, Zhu & Hill (41, 61) characterized the impact of continuous disturbances
on stability using a positively invariant set in terms of node and network parameters. To move to-
ward environmentally friendly power grids that use renewable energy sources, a new paradigm for
stability analysis deserves more attention.
3.1.1. Traditional frequency control. To maintain the system frequency, traditional power
Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 2022.5:689-716. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
systems focus on generator-side control and make generation follow demand by including a so-
phisticated control mechanism with a long-term spinning reserve plan and a three-layer hierar-
chical control structure comprising primary, secondary, and tertiary frequency control (68). The
state-of-the-art load forecast techniques provide day-ahead (in hours) and near-real-time (in min-
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utes) demand predictions. The former help the control center to decide which units should be
turned on at which generation level (i.e., the unit commitment). In close to near real time, the up-
dated near-real-time load forecast is used in the tertiary frequency control, or economic dispatch,
to periodically update set points of generators. The primary frequency control, or droop control,
stabilizes the frequency to a new equilibrium point after a contingency. The secondary frequency
control, or automatic generation control, then gradually drives the frequency back to the nominal
value by automatically adjusting the set points of some selected generators.
3.1.2. New issues. With the high penetration of renewables, the traditional generation-
following-demand control paradigm may be inadequate to regulate frequency due to the high
intertemporal variation and limited predictability of renewables (69). Under this circumstance,
the system uncertainties come from both demand and generation, neither of which can be pre-
dicted without errors. Moreover, because renewable generators are usually connected to the grid
via power converters, which usually do not provide inertia to the system, high use of renewables
may also reduce the total system inertia and make a system more sensitive to contingencies. As
more SGs are replaced by CIGs, the system inertia will be reduced significantly and may even
vary with respect to time. Ulbig et al. (70) showed that the inertia of a system with high use of
renewables decreases significantly and that the frequency with traditional generator-side control
will exceed the acceptable region during the transient response after a contingency, which can
be handled by the same control method for the system with no renewables. We refer readers to
References 60 and 71 for surveys of new issues caused by renewables.
3.1.3. New methods. To address these issues, new control methods and devices have been de-
veloped. First, for the generator side, new control methods have been developed for SGs, such
as event-triggered control to replace the traditional periodic sampling mechanism of automatic
generation control (72) and consensus-based control to replace automatic generation control (73).
Recently, wind turbines have also been used to help frequency regulation by optimally controlling
their rotor speeds and pitch angles (e.g., 74). Different control methods have also been designed
for CIGs, such as droop control, the virtual synchronous machine strategy, and virtual oscillator
control. More details on CIG control are provided in References 60 and 71 and references therein.
Energy storage devices have a high ramping capability and thus can help to eliminate fast fre-
quency deviations caused by renewables. For primary frequency control, energy storage devices
to adjust their active power continuously to follow the change in generation, leading to a new
control paradigm in which demand follows generation. Various types of load-shedding methods
have been successfully used in practice to restore the frequency in extreme situations (79); the dif-
ference between load shedding and load-side control is that the latter aims to secure the system’s
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operation while minimizing the impact on end users. Two goals must therefore be considered
simultaneously: One is to be fully responsive, with high-resolution system-level control across
multiple timescales, and the other is to be nondisruptive, with an imperceptible effect on end-use
performance (77). Liu et al. (80) proposed a novel distributed switching control method to balance
the two conflicting targets, where the designed load-side controller can work in either a frequency
restoration mode or a load restoration mode determined by a well-designed switching signal.
Power systems traditionally have a hierarchical structure consisting of transmission, sub-
transmission, and distribution systems. Frequency control problems are usually considered at
the transmission level, with loads that can be the aggregation of loads in a subtransmission
network. Similarly, a load in a subtransmission network can be the aggregation of all loads
in the related distribution systems. How the control signal obtained in transmission systems
can be split down to the subtransmission systems and then to the distribution systems needs to
be carefully investigated. Addressing this issue may require using the idea of granular control,
where all controllable devices need to work together and behave exactly as required by the
higher-level controllers. However, due to the higher resistance/reactance ratio in these networks,
active power changes may also cause voltage problems, and thus both frequency and voltage must
be considered simultaneously. Zhang et al. (81) have reported some preliminary results along
these lines, using a distributed leader–follower consensus algorithm for frequency control and
decentralized voltage control to guarantee bus voltages.
A related issue is the dynamical model for each aggregate load. Loads are dynamical systems.
With CIGs, storage devices, and a load-side controller involved, the aggregate load dynamics will
be enhanced and may change quickly (82). Therefore, they will play an increasingly important
role in frequency control, and how to build an accurate load model deserves attention.
3.2.1. Traditional voltage control. Traditional voltage control schemes can be categorized into
two classes based on the system status: voltage stability control, which is used in stressed or risky
plemented in a three-layer hierarchical control structure that includes primary control, secondary
control, and tertiary control (84). When automatic voltage control is used, the system is far from
an emergency situation and thus can be gradually governed toward optimized voltage profiles
via mild actions such as generation rescheduling, on-load tap changer adjustment, and voltage or
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3.2.2. New issues. Renewables also cause new voltage issues for power systems. In particular,
variable renewable generation may cause fast and dramatic voltage changes. In subtransmission
and distribution systems, such changes may be larger than those in transmission systems due to
their higher resistance/reactance ratios (88). Moreover, the reverse power caused by renewables
may lead to voltage rise issues and cause incorrect actions of protective devices and disconnec-
tion of equipment. This subsection therefore focuses on voltage control in subtransmission and
distribution systems.
Traditional voltage control in these networks uses on-load tap changers and capacitors that
have discrete steps (89) but may be inadequate for new voltage issues. First, on-load tap changers
and capacitors may not be fast enough for voltage regulation under the new circumstances (90)
due to their discrete control nature. Second, they may undergo excessive numbers of operations,
which may reduce their lifetimes significantly (91). Thus, new control methods are needed to deal
with these new issues.
3.2.3. New methods. As in frequency control, CIGs, storage devices, and flexible loads can all
participate in voltage control. In fact, these three types of devices, known as DERs, can provide fast
active and reactive power support for voltage regulation through the control of electronics that
interface them with the grid. Problems in this area include how to coordinate DERs scattered in a
network and how to cooperate with the existing voltage control devices (e.g., on-load tap changers
and capacitors). Load-side control provides an example. The two goals of load-side control dis-
cussed above in relation to frequency issues also apply here. On the one hand, traditional voltage
control devices have slow control actions; on the other hand, load-side control needs to minimize
the impact on end users. To deal with these issues, Tang et al. (92) proposed a novel coordinated
control framework to handle negative voltage impacts in a weak subtransmission system, where
traditional voltage controllers are used to regulate voltage deviations in the system all the time and
the load-side controller is activated only when needed—for example, when the traditional voltage
controllers cannot keep voltages within the expected ranges.
Another issue with using DERs for voltage control relates to the hierarchical structure of power
systems, where a subtransmission system may have many different DERs scattered in different dis-
tribution systems. It may be hard to control these DERs directly using the subtransmission volt-
age controller. Again, the idea of granular control may help. For example, Tang et al. (93) treated
provides some new insights regarding voltage issues in distribution systems with high renewable
penetration.
The concepts of MGs and networked MGs refer to key modules for future power grids where
distribution systems with distributed generators can be clustered into connected MGs. By con-
trolling a huge number of connected MGs properly, keeping a local power balance within each
MG, and making them help each other, we may solve all problems locally. The key problem then
becomes how to operate a stable MG and a networked MG.
3.3.1. Control of microgrids. To safely operate an MG, we need instantaneous control to stabi-
lize the MG when it is subjected to disturbances (i.e., controller design). To economically operate
an MG, we need to optimally manage its controllable devices within a certain time period (i.e., en-
ergy management system design). We must also integrate these ideas to form an automatic control
system that includes an upper-layer energy management system and a lower-layer instantaneous
control system. When operating an MG, a hierarchical control structure is usually adopted that
combines centralized and decentralized methods—that is, controlling the MG requires a control
center (95). This control method was originally developed for high-voltage power systems and
may reduce control performance or even jeopardize stability if the distinctive characteristics of
MGs are not properly considered.
Frequency and voltage are the two core interacting issues in ensuring stable MG operation.
Many works have focused on the controller design of CIGs. If used alone, this generation-type
control may have some limitations. First, CIGs such as wind and solar plants are usually connected
to the system via electronic devices that do not provide any system inertia. To overcome this issue,
droop control [e.g., P–f and Q–V droop control (96, 97)] is designed to maintain an instantaneous
power balance. Achieving better transient performance requires high droop gains, which may
jeopardize stability (98). Second, distributed renewable sources have a limited control capacity,
which limits the MG’s ability to survive large disturbances (99).
Load-side control and ancillary devices (e.g., energy storage and reactive power compensators)
offer possible ways to address these issues. In particular, controllable loads [e.g., voltage-dependent
loads (100) and loads with electric springs (78)] are used to regulate frequency by adjusting load
bus voltages within certain ranges. These ideas create a new way to regulate frequency and voltage
simultaneously by using load-side control. However, Lee et al. (78) showed that a cooperative
control method using a group of smart loads may have positive effects on system performance,
whereas a decentralized control method may lead to negative impacts and even instability. This
issue may also apply to the control of the other types of controllable devices in MGs. Therefore, a
3.3.2. Control of networked microgrids. A single MG usually has limited operational flexi-
Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 2022.5:689-716. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
bility (105), which may limit its ability to tolerate large disturbances. A feasible way to solve this
problem is to connect nearby MGs and form a larger system (99); the key problem is then how to
make these MGs help each other without introducing new problems.
Different aspects of the concept of networked MG systems have begun to attract attention,
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including self-healing (106), energy trading (107), and load sharing (108). However, most works
in these areas have focused on energy management issues. Liu et al. (109) studied the frequency
control problem in a two-MG system using voltage-dependent loads. The results showed that the
control performance of the networked MGs is significantly better than the performance of each
individual MG when they are subjected to the same disturbance, and the networked MGs could
survive a larger disturbance by helping each other maintain frequency and bus voltages within the
allowable ranges. However, important control issues remain open—for example, how to optimally
manage power trading between MGs and regulate the tie-line power between connected MGs for
stable operations. Again, the integration of hierarchical control and distributed algorithms may
provide a way to solve these problems.
online monitoring the inputs in the absence of outputs (e.g., clustering). If some learning instances are labeled with
contexts, to enhance explicit outputs, semisupervised learning can be performed to learn knowledge from both labeled
the grid’s awareness of
and unlabeled data. In addition to these ML approaches, there exists another special class of ML
risky situations
methods called reinforcement learning (RL) (114). In general, RL strives to train an agent by
iteratively exploring and interacting with a given environment.
Here, we further classify all of these methods into two major categories according to their
learning data flows: feedforward learning (which includes supervised, unsupervised, and semisu-
pervised learning) and interactive learning (which includes RL). Figure 1 illustrates how these
categories work in the context of power grids. As can be seen in the figure, both of them involve
two basic phases: offline learning and online application. Because most of the computational bur-
dens are concentrated on offline learning, the online application phases incur almost negligible
computational costs, which often enables ML-based solutions in power grids to achieve extremely
high online efficiency. This is a significant advantage over conventional model-based methods,
especially when the latter involve complicated optimization. In addition, with no limitations on
system scale or complexity, ML-based solutions are more applicable in practical contexts and can
therefore be extensively deployed in various grids. For detailed applications, although feedforward
ML can be widely applied to both grid dynamic stability/security assessment (DSA) and control,
interactive RL is generally more suitable for control issues, as shown below.
Data Real-time
generation data acquisition
Annu. Rev. Control Robot. Auton. Syst. 2022.5:689-716. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Numerical Practical
simulation model power grid
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Data Data
Historical System dynamic feeding Data-driven feeding System dynamic
operation records states intelligent agent states
Figure 1
(a) Feedforward machine learning–based and (b) interactive reinforcement learning–based solutions in power grids.
Table 2 Representative references for data-driven power grid dynamic stability/security assessment
Means Stability issues Learning methods
Snapshotted feature engineering Transient stability (115, 116) Decision tree (115)
Short-term voltage stability (117, 118) Random forest (119)
Long-term voltage stability (119, 120) Support vector machine (116, 119)
Frequency stability (121) Multiple linear regression (120)
Artificial neural network (119)
Extreme learning machine (117, 121)
Random vector functional link (118)
Temporal dependency learning Transient stability (122, 123) Convolutional neural network (122)
Short-term voltage stability (124, 125) Recurrent neural network (123)
Long-term voltage stability (126) Shapelet learning (124–126)
Spatial–temporal correlation Transient stability (128) Graph convolutional network (128, 129)
learning Short-term voltage stability (129–131) Recurrent neural network (130)
Shapelet learning (131)
As these efforts merely take data points or featured values obtained from individual snapshots
of system dynamics as independent inputs for learning, they could fail to capture the inherent
evolution features hidden behind system dynamic trajectories. Without sufficient feature learning,
it may be difficult for the obtained DSA models to generalize to online application contexts, where
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various unforeseen operation scenarios with complicated system dynamics constantly occur.
However, its reliability depends greatly on the precision of the geospatial information, which may
not always be guaranteed in practice.
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the ith (0 ≤ i ≤ T) time step, and ri + 1 (0 ≤ i ≤ T − 1) is the reward obtained by executing ac-
tion ai after observing system state si (with the system state changed to si + 1 ). The aim of RL is
to derive an optimized decision strategy π ∗ (a|s) that can maximize the accumulated rewards—i.e.,
−1 i
R(τ ) = Ti=0 γ ri+1 , where γ ࢠ [0, 1] is a discount factor that determines how important future
rewards are with respect to the current state. In power grids, relating the rewards R(τ ) to differ-
ent electrical variables for control performance optimization enables various control problems to
be handled, including transient stability control (136), voltage stability control (136), automatic
voltage control (137), frequency control (138), and wide-area low-frequency oscillation damping
control (139).
Classical RL algorithms such as Q-learning (114) generally define system states and actions in
discrete spaces, which would limit their applications in practical grids with diverse continuous vari-
ables. In recent years, by systematically combining DL with RL, an advanced RL paradigm called
deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with a stronger capability in learning representation and gen-
eralization has exhibited great potential in many complex control and decision-making problems,
including the game Go (140). Given the significant advantages of DRL, some typical algorithms
(e.g., deep Q-networks, the soft actor–critic algorithm, and the deep deterministic policy gradient
method) have been recently introduced into power grids and provided excellent performance on
various control tasks (136–138). However, RL/DRL approaches generally must learn the opti-
mized control strategies via numerous trial-and-error interactions, which makes them computa-
tionally costly. For practical large-scale grids involving tens of thousands of buses and transmission
lines, high-performance computing platforms would be needed.
4.3.3. Other learning approaches. Following the basic learning idea in ML-based solutions,
some related learning schemes have been developed for power grid control in recent decades
(141–143). Among them, a popular approach called approximate dynamic programming has been
employed to address typical control tasks such as low-frequency oscillation suppression (143). In
fact, approximate dynamic programming works in the same manner of interactive learning as RL
does but from a stochastic decision and programming perspective. Ma & Hill (141, 142) reported a
class of automatic coordinated voltage control schemes based on knowledge search. In this scheme,
a knowledge base consisting of representative optimally controlled cases is prepared and then
applied to online voltage control via knowledge search. Concretely, the case that best matches the
current online operation scenario is picked out from the knowledge base for application. Although
Incorporating model-based and data-based methods: Although the use of data-based solu-
tions assisted by advanced ML techniques to address various stability and control issues in
power grids is highly promising, their performance could be further boosted if the conven-
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tional model-based methods were systematically incorporated with them. Doing so would
take advantage of the strengths of both model-based and data-based methods, helping create
more powerful solutions.
Reducing the reality gap between simulation models and practical contexts: Existing ML-
based solutions generally assume that offline numerical simulation models can effectively
mimic practical grids. However, due to unavoidable system modeling and simulation errors,
there are nonnegligible reality gaps between them, meaning that the obtained data-driven
solutions deviate from practical contexts. In this respect, it is necessary to improve the fidelity
of offline learning data to mitigate the drift of offline ML procedures.
Improving the interpretability of data-driven solutions: Unlike model-based methods, which
usually involve explicit physical significance, data-driven solutions—especially DL-based
alternatives—often make decisions in black-box form. In practice, it would be difficult for
system practitioners on the industrial side to accept such nontransparent decisions and be-
lieve that they can reliably work all the time. Hence, there is an imperative need to develop
more interpretable ML schemes without sacrificing learning performance. In fact, this can
not only promote the acceptance of ML solutions in the electric power industry but also pro-
vide interpretable knowledge uncovered from data to help practitioners better understand
the complicated characteristics of practical grids.
Addressing the rarity of unstable or unsafe scenarios: In spite of the high risk of encounter-
ing various faults, practical power grids can maintain stability in most cases and are unstable
or unsafe in only a few situations, which tend to be rare in practice. It can therefore be hard
to rigorously validate the reliability of a data-driven solution in practical contexts, especially
when simulation models are not precise enough to mimic practical conditions. To address
this issue, realistic data augmentation should be carefully carried out. In addition, the rar-
ity of unstable or unsafe scenarios may distort learning cases, but this can be mitigated by
specific tricks, such as over- or subsampling and cost-sensitive learning.
Enhancing the robustness to practical defective environments: Because data-driven solu-
tions are built on system operational data, the data quality acts as a cornerstone for their
reliable implementation in practice. In practical contexts, however, due to the inevitability
of defective measurement and communication conditions, PMU data errors or dropouts
and wide-area communication delays or failures reduce the quality of online PMU data.
Moreover, considering possible cyberattacks in modern power grids, the PMU data quality
issue may be more severe. In this regard, more robust ML schemes need to be designed
Transferring knowledge between related power grids: For existing ML-based solutions in
power grids, data-driven models are often devoted to specific systems. For new systems, or
even expanded existing systems, they are often learned from scratch, which incurs heavy of-
fline computational burdens, especially in practical large-scale systems. Although this does
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not influence online efficiency, it could impede the efficient implementation of the online
model updates described above. In fact, if a practical large system shares some similarities
with a small one, a new data-driven model can be efficiently derived for the former by strate-
gically transferring knowledge first learned from the small one. In addition, instead of learn-
ing from scratch, this knowledge transfer may provide a better starting point to accelerate
offline learning in a large system.
Implementing ML-based schemes in a distributed manner: The majority of existing ML-
based solutions in power grids are assumed to be deployed in a centralized way, where
system-wide data such as PMU measurements are uploaded to the control center for ML
implementation. This could create a high risk of data leaks as well as heavy communication
burdens. If these problems become major concerns in practice (e.g., networked MGs being
sensitive to data privacy and communication flexibility), then distributed ML implementa-
tions such as federated learning (147) would be a necessity.
5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
This survey has provided a brief overview of power grid stability and control. In addition to
summarizing classical model-based analysis and control approaches, we have highlighted some
new trends, including stability issues induced by renewable energy sources, graph-based methods,
distributed stability analysis and control, and networked MG control. Given the potential of
data-based methods in tackling some conventionally challenging issues in practical grids, we have
also discussed recent progress in data-driven power grid DSA and control as well as some unsolved
problems. We hope this survey can inspire more innovative ideas, methods, and technologies to
further develop new solutions for secure yet sustainable operation and control of future power
grids.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that
might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by grants from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Spe-
cial Administrative Region under the Theme-Based Research Scheme (through project number
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Annual Review of
Control, Robotics,
and Autonomous
Contents Systems
Volume 5, 2022
Reinforcement Learning
Lukas Brunke, Melissa Greeff, Adam W. Hall, Zhaocong Yuan, Siqi Zhou,
Jacopo Panerati, and Angela P. Schoellig p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 411
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