Probabilistic vs deterministic power system stability and reliability assessment

The power industry has undergone the significant restructuring throughout the world since the 1990s. In particular, its traditional, vertically monopolistic structure has been reformed into competitive markets in pursuit of increased efficiency in the electricity production and utilization. Along with the introduction of competitive and deregulated electricity markets, some power system problems have become difficult to analyse with traditional methods, especially when power system stability, reliability, and planning problems are involved. Traditionally, the power system analysis was based on deterministic frameworks; but they only consider the specific configurations, which ignore the stochastic or probabilistic nature of real power systems. Moreover, many exterior constraints as well as growing system uncertainties now need to be taken into consideration. All these have made existing challenges even more complex. One consequence is that more effective and efficient power system analysis methods are required in the deregulated, market-oriented environment. The mature theory background has facilitated effective employment of probabilistic based analysis methods. The study of probabilistic approaches based power system analysis has become highly important. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.