Simulation-based approach to improving the functional stability of critical infrastructure objects under high-load stress conditions

Abstract

Unified Power System (UPS) is an important critical infrastructure in Kazakhstan. Post-Soviet old designs, cyberattacks, natural disasters, and peak operational loads are the key risk factors. To ensure a good economic resilience and national security these structures have to be stable under extreme stress conditions. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to use Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the stability of Kazakhstan's smart grid infrastructure, under high-load scenarios. Seven scenarios were chosen in this work. These included a baseline case and two mitigation scenarios (capacity upgrade and demand management). In addition, four stress scenarios were analyzed including winter peaks, cyber-attack, renewable energy integration, and simultaneous transmission component outages. The system failure is defined as the occurrence of load demand exceeding allowable capacity limits. Results revealed the failure probability of the capacity upgrade scenario to be the lowest (1.5%) and the highest for cyber-attacks and simultaneous component outages scenarios (16.9%). The present research paper showed that probabilistic simulations can be used effectively to quantify the vulnerabilities in Kazakhstan's UPS.