Statistical analysis of transmission line capacities in electric power grids

This paper mainly focuses on statistical analysis of transmission line capacities in terms of both topology and electrical parameters. We expand our earlier work on random-topology power grid modeling as a way to generate synthetic grid data to test new concepts and designs. We examine transmission line capacities based on both network topology metrics and a newly proposed electrical index called “neighboring capacity ratio”. The obtained results show that the issue of transfer capacity assignment not only emerges as an electrical optimization concern, but some topological metrics must be considered to find the best line capacity assignment that is consistent with what is manifested in real-world grid. Statistical experiments conducted on the ERCOT and WECC system data help appropriately characterize the transmission line capacity. And the results can be utilized to improve our synthetic power grid models in the future.