Electricity Market-Oriented DC-Segmentation Design and Optimal Scheduling for Electrical Power Transmission

A method of segmenting a pre-existing multi-regional alternating current (ac) grid, said grid comprising a plurality of ac power generating stations synchronously interconnected by ac power transmission paths, said stations operating within associated market sectors subject to associated market rules, said method comprising the steps of:

• (a) identifying locations in all of those ones of said ac transmission paths at which a controllable direct current (dc) link can be inserted to substantially reduce the likelihood of the cascading of a grid outage in one of said sectors to another one of said sectors;
• (b) selecting a least-cost plurality of said dc links and associated locations to achieve a desired level of prevention of cascading outages;
• (c) at each location so selected, segmenting the associated ac transmission path by inserting the associated dc link at the selected location;
• and,
• (d) controlling power flow between said sectors by controlling the operation of said selected dc links.

A modified electric energy transmission network, said network before modification comprising a pre-existing multi-regional alternating current (ac) grid comprising a plurality of ac power generating stations synchronously interconnected by ac power transmission paths, said stations operable within associated market sectors subject to associated market rules, said network after modification comprising:

• (a) said plurality of ac power generating stations operable within said associated market sectors subject to said associated market rules;
• (b) electric energy transmission paths interconnecting said stations, at least some of said paths extending between differing ones of said sectors, and wherein each of said paths which extend between differing ones of said sectors includes a controllable direct current (dc) link in the path for desynchronizing said differing sectors, each of said dc links being inserted at a location segmenting a pre-existing ac power transmission path into a transmission path comprising the dc link and ac power transmission paths on opposed sides of said link;
• and,
• (c) control means operatively connectable to each of said dc links for controlling power flow between said differing sectors by controlling the operation of said dc links.