Robustness of the European power grids under intentional attack

The power grid defines one of the most important technological networks of our times and sustains our complex society. It has evolved for more than a century into an extremely huge and seemingly robust and well understood system. But it becomes extremely fragile as well, when unexpected, usually min...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Solé, Ricard V., Rosas Casals, Martí|||0000-0002-5243-2601, Corominas Murtra, Bernat, Valverde Castillo, Sergi
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2008
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/6182
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/6182
https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.77.026102
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Electric power transmission
Power grid
Energia elèctrica -- Transmissió
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria elèctrica::Distribució d'energia elèctrica::Instal·lacions elèctriques
Descripción
Sumario:The power grid defines one of the most important technological networks of our times and sustains our complex society. It has evolved for more than a century into an extremely huge and seemingly robust and well understood system. But it becomes extremely fragile as well, when unexpected, usually minimal, failures turn into unknown dynamical behaviours leading, for example, to sudden and massive blackouts. Here we explore the fragility of the European power grid under the effect of selective node removal. A mean field analysis of fragility against attacks is presented together with the observed patterns. Deviations from the theoretical conditions for network percolation (and fragmentation) under attacks are analysed and correlated with non topological reliability measures.