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Transient stability of a power system can be significantly affected by wind power generators due to their stochastic power output and complex dynamic characteristics. This paper proposes a robust optimization approach for coordinating generation dispatch and emergency load shedding against transient instability under uncertain wind power output. The problem is modelled as a two-stage robust optimization (TSRO) model considering transient stability constraints, where the first-stage is to optimize the generation dispatch (preventive control) before a contingency and the second-stage decision is the emergency load shedding (emergency control) after the contingency occurrence under the worst case of wind power variation. To solve this TSRO problem, this paper also proposes a solution algorithm which integrates transient stability assessment and transient stability constraint construction in a column and constraint generation framework. The proposed method is validated on the New-England 39-bus system and the Nordic32 system, which shows high computational efficiency and stability robustness against uncertain wind power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally,wind power plants (WPPs) installations are dramatically increasing, leading to a large-scale integration into the power grids. Huge endeavors are devoted to achieving an efficient operation of WPPs. This paper offers a novel chaotic-billiards optimizer (C-BO) algorithm to properly design the fuzzy logic control (FLC) strategy for stability enhancement of grid-integrated WPPs. The C-BO algorithm has distinct features such as simple construction, low numbers of parameters required to design, high convergence speed, and low computational burden. The permanent-magnet synchronous generator (PMSG)-based WPP is interlinked into the electric power grid through power converters. A cascaded FLC approach, which is optimally fine-tuned by the C-BO, is offered as the control methodology for these converters. The C-BO algorithm fine-tunes the gain factors of multiple FLCs at a rapid convergence speed. A simulation-based optimization approach is applied, in which the integrated square error criterion is chosen as an objective function. For the sake of preciseness, the PMSG-based WPP is connected to the IEEE 39-bus New England test system. The effectiveness of the optimal FLC using the C-BO algorithm is compared with that achieved using the water cycle algorithm-based optimal FLC, the genetic algorithm-based optimal FLC, and the marine predator algorithm-based optimal proportional-integral controller, taking into account severe grid disturbances. Moreover, real wind speed measured data captured from Zaafarana Station in Egypt are extensively performed in the system studies. The validity of the offered control approach is widely verified by the simulation analyses using the MATLAB/Simulink environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewables, such as solar and wind generation, combined with storage are becoming a key part of modern grid. This paper develops probabilistic tools for analysis of grid reliability with such variable generation resources. The developed tools improve speed and accuracy of the reliability analysis compared to usual Monte Carlo methods. This is achieved by using an extension of well known convolution method applicable to interdependent variables. The interdependent distributions are obtained from historical data using Machine Learning of quantile models. The paper presents a novel approach to the analysis of reliability contribution of storage based on these models and related to Information Theory. The developed tools are demonstrated in several example scenarios for ISO-New England service area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a systematic framework for analyzing how low frequency forced oscillations propagate in electric power systems. Using this framework, the paper shows how to mathematically justify the so-called Dissipating Energy Flow (DEF) forced oscillation source location technique. The DEF's specific deficiencies are pinpointed, and its underlying energy function is analyzed via incremental passivity theory. This analysis is then used to prove that there exists no passivity transformation (i.e. quadratic energy function) which can simultaneously render all components of a lossy classical power system passive. The paper goes on to develop a simulation-free algorithm for predicting the performance of the DEF method in a generalized power system, and it analyzes the passivity of three non-classical load and generation components. The proposed propagation framework and performance algorithm are both tested and illustrated on the IEEE 39-bus New England system and the WECC 179-bus system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appropriately designed renewable support policies can play a leading role in promoting renewable expansions and contribute to low emission goals. Meanwhile, ill-designed policies may distort electricity markets, put power utilities and generation companies on an unlevel playing field and, in turn, cause inefficiencies. This paper proposes a framework to optimize policymaking for renewable energy sources, while incorporating conflicting interests and objectives of different stakeholders. We formulate a tri-level optimization problem where each level represents a different entity: a state regulator, a power utility and a wholesale electricity market. To solve this tri-level problem, we exploit optimality conditions and develop a modification of the Column-and-Cut Generation (C&CG) algorithm that generates cuts for bilinear terms. The case study based on the ISO New England 8-zone test system reveals different policy trade-offs that policymakers face under different decarbonization goals and implementation scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automatic generation control (AGC) system is temporally situated between economic dispatch and synchronous generator dynamics, and its primary role is to regulate frequency within and tie-line flows between control areas. Given appropriate choice of participation factors (feed-forward controller gains that govern the disaggregation of the area-level power requirement to individual generators), the AGC can be engineered to nudge system dynamics toward a steady-state operating point corresponding to economic optimality. This paper establishes necessary and sufficient conditions under which a widely accepted choice of participation factors guarantees the alignment of steady-state synchronous generator outputs with a global minimum of a prototypical economic dispatch problem. In so doing, it resolves several ambiguities and formalizes technical assumptions governing the role of the standard AGC architecture in the context of economic dispatch and steady-state operation. Numerical case studies tailored to a modified version of the New England 39-bus 10-machine test system validate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze the grid integration effect of a virtual synchronous generator (VSG), this paper proposes a simple power system modeling method. It is shown that for a specific disturbance, by simplifying the original network to a radical n generators single-load model, its state-space small-signal model can be obtained using a unified formula, as long as the single generator infinite bus model of each generator is given. Case studies based on the IEEE 9-bus test system as well as the New York New England test system show high efficiency of the proposed modeling to represent slow power and frequency deviations. Modal analyses give insight into how system poles are synthesized by individual generator poles, and how different designs of VSGs affect the system oscillation modes. Potential errors due to the topology simplification and the measures to avoid them are discussed. The time-domain results and modal analyses highlight some important features of VSG, which are overlooked in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a fractional-order sliding mode controller (FOSMC) for fixed-time stability of multimachine power systems. Fractional calculus has been applied in sliding mode control (SMC) to design FOSMC which can better suppress the chattering phenomenon than the traditional integer-order SMC. Hence, a FOSMC is proposed to regulate the excitation of synchronous generators to improve the transient stability of the power system. In addition, the FOSMC can maintain the multimachine power systems stabilization in an upper bound and measurable convergence time independent of the initial operating conditions of the power system. The Lyapunov function is implemented to demonstrate the stability of multimachine power systems under the FOSMC, and the upper bound convergence time of the power system is generally estimated. The New England 10-machine 39-bus power system is taken into simulation to test the effectiveness and superior performances of the FOSMC than the existing control methods under different operating conditions. Meanwhile, the FOSMC with different orders are presented to verify that the FOSMC can better restrain the chattering phenomenon than traditional integer-order SMC. Simulation results show that the FOSMC can effectively reduce the chattering phenomenon and ensure the power system stabilization in an upper bound time, thus enhancing the dynamic performances of the power system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US transmission systems and wholesale electricity markets, albeit federally regulated, often span across multiple state jurisdictions. In this environment, state regulators can strategically exploit this techno-economic coupling to advance their clean energy policy goals at the expense of neighboring jurisdictions. This paper investigates strategic regulatory competition to understand its effect on achieving Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). We formulate a chance-constrained equilibrium problem with equilibrium constraints (CC-EPEC), which considers multiple state regulators, acting in coordination with in-state power companies, to implement RPS goals in the least-cost manner. To solve this CC-EPEC, we customize a Progressive Hedging (PH) algorithm. The case study uses the CC-EPEC and PH algorithm to analyze the effects of state regulatory competition in the ISO New England system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequency dynamics during primary frequency control is closely related to pre-disturbance operating conditions, the disturbance, and equipment characteristics. How to rigorously express such a relation in a frequency stability constrained optimal dispatch problem is still an open question. This paper presents an optimal power flow (OPF) model for generation re-dispatch that considers dynamic frequency response constraints to ensure frequency stability during primary frequency regulation. The distinct feature of the model is that the dynamic frequency response is formulated as a set of differential algebraic equations (DAEs), which allows considering the transient behavior of frequency and mechanical/electromagnetic power for each generator during primary frequency control period. Based on the solution of the optimization problem, a definition of the primary reserve for each unit is proposed according to the maximum of incremental mechanical power. This definition helps meet the adequacy requirement of primary frequency response and achieve partial frequency restoration. Simulation results on WSCC 3-machine 9-bus system, New England 10-machine 39-bus system and the modified IEEE 54-machine 118-bus system validate the effectiveness of the proposed model and reveal the strong coupling between frequency dynamics and the pre-disturbance generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a data-driven cooperative method for load frequency control (LFC) of the multi-area power system based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MA-DRL) in continuous action domain. The proposed method can nonlinearly and adaptively derive the optimal coordinated control strategies for multiple LFC controllers through centralized learning and decentralized implementation. The centralized learning is achieved by MA-DRL based on a global action-value function to quantify overall LFC performance of the power system. To solve the MA-DRL problem, multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) is derived to adjust control agents’ parameters considering the nonlinear generator behaviors. For implementation, each individual controller only needs local information in its control area to deliver optimal control signals. Numerical simulations on a three-area power system and the fully-modeled New-England 39-bus system demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively minimize control errors against stochastic frequency variations caused by load and renewable power fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy storage systems (ESSs) have been applied in power systems for a long time. It participates in the grid frequency control at two levels, the primary frequency control and the secondary frequency control. In this paper, a control strategy that integrates one synchronous generator (SG) and ESS as one single generation unit named flexible generator (FG) is proposed, allowing ESS to participate in primary frequency control. The main trick is that the proposed control strategy not only adopts SG's frequency as the ESS control input but also feeds back FG's total output power to control the ESS. FGs have more substantial damping and stability than SGs. The proposed control strategy has a superior performance compared to traditional PID control and fuzzy control strategies of ESSs. The flexible control parameters are determined by the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) with disturbance suppression. The ESS's capacity is discussed and determined. Simulation results of the New England 39-bus system verify the advantages of FGs both in load changes and faults. The HIL experiment results also illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the flexible control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power flow formulated with a distributed slack bus involves modeling the active-power output of each generator with three elements: a nominal injection modulated by a fraction of the net-load imbalance allocated via a participation factor. This setup acknowledges generator dynamics and system operations, but it has long been plagued by ambiguous and inconsistent interpretations of its constituent elemental quantities. In this paper, we establish that, with the: i) nominal active-power injections set to be the economic dispatch setpoints, ii) participation factors fixed to be the ones used in automatic generation control, and iii) net-load imbalance considered to be the total load and loss unaccounted in economic dispatch, the power flow solution best matches results from a simulation unto steady state of the system differential algebraic equation (DAE) model. Numerical case studies tailored to the New England test system validate the analysis by demonstrating that solutions obtained from a distributed slack formulation offer lower errors (with respect to DAE-model simulations) compared to the exhaustive set of all single slack bus choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new coordinated method for preventive generation rescheduling and corrective load shedding to maintain power system transient stability under uncertain wind power variation. A two-step bi-level optimization model is proposed where generation rescheduling and load shedding are coordinated by a risk coordination parameter, which adjusts the total coordination cost in the upper level. Then, based on Extended Equal Area Criterion (EEAC) and trajectory sensitivities, the non-linear risk and stability constraints are converted into the linear form for generation rescheduling cost and load shedding cost optimization in the lower level, respectively. Uncertain wind power output is modeled as a small number of robust test scenarios. Finally, the golden section search is applied to solve the bi-level problem. The proposed method is validated on the New-England 39-bus system by using commercial grade software. The computational efficiency, economic optimality, and stability robustness under random wind power of the method are demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the knowledge accumulated off-line and feature extractions, a novel data-based learning and control method is proposed for the long-term voltage stability problem in this paper. All the spatial-temporal data is considered and the features of different emergency events are extracted by principle component analysis which can reduce the dimension and reveal the significant internal structure of the data. An artificial neural network is used to build a classifier to reinforce the relationship directly between the system dynamics and optimal control actions. With the prepared control knowledge, it is faster to find an optimal control action online with a good system performance. Simulation results on the 6-bus system, New England 39-bus system and Iceland 189-bus system are given to show the potential of this method for on-line control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

System inertia plays a vital role in controlling the angular stability of the system during a disturbance. Due to increased penetration of power electronic interfaced sources, such as Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) source, the overall system inertia reduces and varies depending on their operating conditions. In this paper, an approach for online inertia estimation in the power system network with SPV sources is proposed, using the synchronized measurements from Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs). An equivalent swing equation is used to emulate the network dynamics. A relationship between the inertia constant and the roots of this equation is determined. In order to numerically obtain the roots, the Estimation of Signal Parameter via Rotational Invariance Techniques (ESPRIT) method is first used to find the modes present in the frequency signal. A new formulation is proposed to extract an equivalent mode from all the obtained modes. Also, to avoid phase step error, Rate Of Change Of Frequency (ROCOF) is estimated from the equivalent mode of the frequency signal. Results obtained for the 39 bus New England system for various test cases, using Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS), prove the efficacy and superiority of the proposed approach over the existing approaches in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poorly damped inter-area modes of oscillations represent a major concern to power system operation since they detain the power transfer capability of transmission networks. This situation becomes more stringent as the tie-lines are heavily stressed and/or large amounts of renewable energy resources are installed. To overcome this issue, a detailed mathematical model is proposed in this paper to reduce the linearized model of a large power system using the cross-Gramian technique. The presented approach divides the system into a study area which contains one generation unit with installed power system stabilizer (PSS) and an external one which comprises the rest of generation units in the system. Model order reduction is only applied to the external area with the objective of maintaining the characteristics of the original model. Meanwhile, the dynamics of the study area are preserved to provide the required damping through the designed PSS. In addition, an online tuning methodology is also presented to provide robust damping performance in response to changes in the system operating conditions. The deployed cross-Gramian model order reduction alleviates the computational burden and time associated with the online PSS tuning when original power system models are used. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is tested using the New-England 39-bus system in addition to another practical system which resembles the Northern Regional Power Grid India test system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using their fast power reduction capabilities, the induction motor variable speed drives can successfully participate in the power system primary frequency control. A new control strategy for fast frequency support from the diode front-end induction motor variable speed drive is presented in this paper. By this, practical restrictions are considered. In this context, an existing conventional scheme presented in literature is firstly modified by deploying an estimated motor's power losses for a more exactly control design. Next, a novel control scheme is proposed. It attains the fastest frequency support from the drive and simultaneously restricts its minimum power consumption to a given positive value to prevent regeneration mode during the frequency support process. The frequency of applied voltage to the motor is adjusted through a proportional-integrator compensator with deviation of the drive's consumption power from its reference power as input. The reference power is synthesized by permanent and temporary components, which are determined based on deviation and time derivative of the power system's frequency, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed smart drive for the primary frequency control is investigated using the New England 39 bus and a more realistic Great Britain 36 zone test networks. It improves system frequency response in terms of the rate of change of frequency and the frequency nadir. Furthermore, the new control scheme can contribute to quickly damping inter-area oscillations in multi-machine power systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the continuous growth of grid-integrated wind power generation causes reduction in the inertia of power system, which deteriorates primary frequency regulation (PFR) of grid. Therefore, wind farms (WFs) are recommended to operate at deloaded condition, rather than maximum power point, to provide sufficient primary reserve for improvement of the PFR. To improve PFR, the droop control uses this reserve and the inertia support emulates stored kinetic energy from the rotor of wind turbines. In this paper, a distributed synchronized control (DSC) technique is proposed which uses optimum power share ratio (PSR) and the frequency of each WF at the point of common coupling to calculate the droop. The optimum PSR is based on the ratio of primary reserve at the WF and required change in rotor speed for the WF. An iterative method is proposed to obtain the PSR of each WF. To reduce delay effect on proposed DSC performance, the synchronized droop varies differently with increasing communication delays. The effectiveness of proposed DSC is tested in WF integrated 39-bus New England system and compared with distributed Newton method. The performance of proposed DSC is verified for different false data injection scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing power/load demand is becoming a new concern for the grid operators as it can potentially overload transmission lines. Among advantages of a multi-terminal dc (MTDC) grid, its high controlability makes it a promising asset for ac line overload alleviation. This paper proposes a model predictive control based strategy, which regularly updates the power setpoints of the MTDC converter stations and ac generators to alleviate ac line overloads. To compute and update the power setpoints, necessary measurements are received by the controller within regular time intervals. The proposed controller ensures that subsequent to any ac line overload, changing the power setpoints of the MTDC converter station does not cause any operation violation in the MTDC grid. Furthermore, it ensures that the ac voltage limits and voltage stability criteria are met to avoid voltage instability. Performance and effectiveness of the proposed controller are evaluated by simulation studies on two systems, i.e., the 39-bus New England system integrated with a 5-bus MTDC system and the IEEE 118-bus system connected to a 6-bus MTDC system. Simulation results confirm that the MTDC grid can play a major role in controlling active powers of most of the ac transmission lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-term probabilistic load forecasting is essential to power systems management and optimization of power flows across transmission networks. Developing forecasting tools capable of providing accurate predictions must comply with their practical implementation in short-term operations, mainly in terms of fast computing and high efficiency. Many data-driven forecasting solutions are often unnecessarily verbose, thus making their practical value limited. This problem occurs more frequently when multiple loads have to be predicted simultaneously, as in power transmission system analysis and optimization. In this paper, we propose a new cooperative forecasting system that refines probabilistic forecasts of individual loads online. The refining procedure is based on a multivariate quantile regression, which is dynamically applied to the individual forecasts as new observations become available. The proposal is validated on the load data published by ISO New England for eight regions, covering six states of the United States. The quality of probabilistic forecasts is assessed in terms of reliability and sharpness, comparing the results to three benchmarks. The proposed method outperforms the best benchmark by up to 6% w.r.t. the reduction in pinball loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increase of practical power system complexity, power system online stability assessment and control is more and more important. Application of the traditional model-driven methods is always limited by contradiction between accuracy and efficiency, while data-driven methods demonstrate strong abilities for the online decision-making support with advancement of various data mining techniques. Instead of direct application of data-driven methods in the power system, this paper first discusses feasible integration approaches for the model-driven and data-driven methods based on the existing achievements, and then, proposes to integrate both methods for the power system online frequency stability assessment and control. The integrated method consists of frequency dynamics prediction and load shedding procedure. In frequency dynamics prediction procedure, integration of system frequency response (SFR) model and the extreme learning machine (ELM)-based learning model is applied, where basic physical causality is kept in the SFR model and ELM is used to fit and correct error of the SFR. The ELM also plays a part in load shedding prediction model construction by digging out mapping relationship from samples. Finally, the proposed prediction and control scheme for the frequency stability is verified by simulations on WSCC 9-bus, New England 39-bus, and NPCC 140-bus system. Results show that the reliability, time efficiency, and accuracy are enhanced with the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an approach to obtain dynamic versions of static distribution factors, such as power-transfer, line-outage, and outage-transfer distribution factors. With the proposed dynamic distribution factors (DDFs), one can predict line flows over the post-contingency transient period with the same computational effort as obtaining static distribution factors. Our development centers on deriving closed-form expressions that approximate generator outputs through the post-contingency transient period with a reduced-order aggregate dynamical model to recover dynamic generator participation factors. The full suite of DDFs can then be derived by combining these dynamic generator participation factors with injection shift factors, i.e., static linear sensitivities of line active-power flows with respect to nodal active-power injections, computed at the pre-disturbance steady-state operating point. We illustrate the accuracy and computational benefits of the proposed DDFs via numerical case studies involving the New England test system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for detecting and correcting malicious data corruptions in phasor measurement unit (PMU) measurements. Detection of malicious injections is formulated as a compressed sensing problem and the actual signals are recovered using an online robust principal component analysis-based algorithm. Different patterns of malicious injection attacks on PMU data are considered and the effect of corruption and reconstruction using the algorithm is analyzed on a wide-area mode metering application. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated with different subspace selection. A suitable threshold for the algorithm is selected by a graphical analysis of the receiver operating characteristics curve. Data from a 16-machine, 5-area New England–New York system is used along with a recursive modal estimation algorithm to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach under ambient and transient conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines multi-interval real-time markets in the context of U.S. independent system operators (ISOs). We show that current ISO implementations that settle only the upcoming interval of the multi-interval solution can create incentive problems. Fundamentally, this is the result of each successive optimization problem treating historical losses as sunk costs. To solve the incentive issues, we present an existing proposal and a new multi-interval pricing method. Both methods incorporate historical losses and produce prices that appropriately incentivize generators to follow multi-interval dispatch instructions when implemented with a fixed finite horizon and perfect foresight. In practice, the fixed horizon requirement necessary for this result is not satisfied because new information about the future is constantly being revealed to the ISO as time proceeds. Realistic rolling horizon implementations for an ISO New England-based system suggest that the new method results in lower out-of-market payments than both current ISO implementations and the existing proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power system congestion is a major problem that the system operator (SO) would face in the post-deregulated era. Therefore, investigation of techniques for congestion-free wheeling of power is of paramount interest. One of the most practiced and an obvious technique of congestion management is rescheduling the power outputs of generators in the system. However, all generators in the system need not take part in congestion management. Development of sound formulation and appropriate solution technique for this problem is aimed in this paper. Contributions made in the present paper are twofold. Firstly a technique for optimum selection of participating generators has been introduced using generator sensitivities to the power flow on congested lines. Secondly this paper proposes an algorithm based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) which minimizes the deviations of rescheduled values of generator power outputs from scheduled levels. The PSO algorithm, reported in this paper, handles the binding constraints by a technique different from the traditional penalty function method. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology has been analyzed on IEEE 30-bus and 118-bus systems and the 39-bus New England system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a concept overview of an automatic operator of electrical networks (AOEN) for real-time alleviation of component overloads and increase of system static load-ability, based on state-estimator data only. The control used for this purpose is real-power generation rescheduling, although any other control input could fit the new framework. The key performance metrics are the vulnerability index of a generation unit (VIGS) and its sensitivity (SVIGS), accurately computed using a realistic ac power flow incorporating the AGC model (AGC-PF). Transmission overloads, vulnerability indices and their sensitivities with respect to generation control are translated into fuzzy-set notations to formulate, transparently, the relationships between incremental line flows and the active power output of each controllable generator. A fuzzy-rule-based system is formed to select the best controllers, their movement and step-size, so as to minimize the overall vulnerability of the generating system while eliminating overflows. The controller performance is illustrated on the IEEE 39-bus (New England) network and the three-area IEEE-RTS96 network subjected to severe line outage contingencies. A key result is that min- imizing the proposed vulnerability metric in real-time results in increased substantial loadability (prevention) in addition to overload elimination (correction). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consideration of transient stability constraints in optimal power flow (OPF) problems is increasingly important because modern power systems tend to operate closer to stability boundaries due to the rapid increase of electricity demand and the deregulation of electricity markets. Transient stability constrained OPF (TSCOPF) is however a nonlinear optimization problem with both algebraic and differential equations, which is difficult to be solved even for small power systems. This paper develops a robust and efficient method for solving TSCOPF problems based on differential evolution (DE), which is a new branch of evolutionary algorithms with strong ability in searching global optimal solutions of highly nonlinear and nonconvex problems. Due to the flexible properties of DE mechanism, the hybrid method for transient stability assessment, which combines time-domain simulation and transient energy function method, can be employed in DE so that the detailed dynamic models of the system can be incorporated. To reduce the computational burden, several strategies are proposed for the initialization, assessment and selection of solution individuals in evolution process of DE. Numerical tests on the WSCC three-generator, nine-bus system and New England ten-generator, 39-bus system have demonstrated the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Finally, in order to deal with the large-scale system and speed up the computation, DE is parallelized and implemented on a Beowulf PC-cluster. The effectiveness of the parallel DE approach is demonstrated by simulations on the 17-generator, 162-bus system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]