Analyzing and Mitigating the Impacts of GMD and EMP Events on the Electrical Grid with PowerModelsGMD.jl

Abstract

Geomagnetic disturbances and E3 high-altitude electromagnetic pulse events pose a substantial threat to the electrical grid by adversely impacting and damaging high-voltage transmission networks and equipment. To evaluate the risks and mitigate the potential effects of these hazards, this work proposes PowerModelsGMD.jl (abbr. PMsGMD). PMsGMD is an open-source Julia package that solves for quasi-dc line flow and ac power flow problems in a system subjected to geomagnetically induced currents. Unlike commercially available software solutions, it is extensible and applicable to a variety of problems. The flexibility of this framework is demonstrated by applying it to the problem of identifying mitigation strategies via line switching for a time-extended transformer heating problem. An overview of PMsGMD is presented in this paper: introduction to its design, validation of its implementation, demonstration of its performance and effectiveness, and a description of how it may be applied to aid system-operation decisions.