Measuring Community and Multi-Industry Impacts of Cascading Failures in Power Systems

Many economic activities strongly depend on critical infrastructure systems, especially the electric power system. Failures in the electric power infrastructure not only cause the disruption of power supply but also result in losses in productivity across other dependent industries. This paper aims to develop a framework that uniquely integrates an ac power flow based cascading failure analysis for the electric network with a multiregional, multi-industry interdependence model to quantify the short-term economic impacts of electric power disruption due to cascading failures. An ac power flow based cascading failure analysis is developed to enable the accurate reproduction and consequences estimation of a cascading event. We use the economic interdependence model to evaluate the economic impact of a cascading event taking into account spatial explicitness and cross-border effects. The economic impacts due to both the direct power supply disruption and the workforce unavailability are estimated. A case study was conducted on the Swiss electric network, accounting for the international impact on other related countries. The results provide guidance for ranking the criticality of the elements in the electric network and for identifying the vulnerable regions and economic sectors that could be strengthened through preparedness planning.