Optimal Load Shedding: An Economic Approach
Deepak Kumar Singh Rajiv Shekhar
Dept. of Electrical Engineering Dept. of MME
IIT Kanpur, India IIT Kanpur, India
deepaks@iitk.ac.in vidtan@iitk.ac.in
Abstract—In this paper an economic criterion based optimal load
shedding algorithm has been developed. The objective is to
minimize the sum of curtailed load and also the total system
interruption cost within the frame-work of system operational
and security constraints. The load shedding problem is
formulated as a non-linear optimization model that is optimized
using Genetic Algorithm (GA). A test system designated as the
RBTS [30, 31] is used to test the technique. The system includes
two generator busbars with eleven generating units, nine
transmission lines and five load busbars where six distribution
systems are connected.
Keywords-component; Power System; Load shedding, Genetic
Algorithm
I. INTRODUCTION
The rapid growth in demand of electricity, both in developing
and developed countries has thrown a big challenge to the
power system planners and operators. Past experiences
indicates that the growth in load demand is always ahead of
the growth in generation. Electric supply failures can have
serious monetary and reliability impacts on the system
customers. During power deficit situation, system operators
are required to make load shedding decisions based on system
security concerns, such as voltage, current, power and
frequency constraints, to alleviate the constraints and maintain
system stability.
The distribution systems are the final link of the
interconnection between power systems and the consumers. If
there is the necessity to cut the load for the safety restrictions,
usually the shedding occurs in the distribution system. Various
types of load shedding schemes have been studied by the
researchers in the past. Most of these are traditional schemes
that relied heavily on local measurements for inputs and shed
a preset amount of load when frequency or voltages reached a
critical level. Some advance schemes used semi-adaptive and
adaptive under frequency load shedding schemes [1–8] that
tried to overcome the problem of under shedding or over
shedding of load by utilizing the rate of change of frequency
along with the frequency value to make decisions about
shedding load. Under voltage load shedding schemes [9–21]
are also gained popularity in last few years as they proved to
be an economical and effective technique to maintain voltage
stability as against expensive and time consuming methods
like shunt compensation, new additions to the main circuit,
etc. The increase in use of advanced metering and
978-1-4244-6890-4/10$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
Prem K Kalra
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
IIT Kanpur, India
kalra@iitk.ac.in
communication systems has inspired centralized load shedding
schemes [22] that used frequency and voltage values from
different parts of the system as inputs. Some load shedding
schemes are also based on optimization procedures [23–26]
which reduce the cost incurred due to load shedding, some
others researchers have used neural networks and fuzzy logic
[27–29] as an aid for determining the amount and location of
load shedding. It can be observed though that most of these
schemes primarily focus on technical issues and electrical
parameters such as frequency or voltage. Economic criterion
has been rarely used in the load shedding schemes .This paper
presents a unique load shedding scheme that combines
technical criteria of load shedding with economic parameters
so that the total economic loss of the system can be
minimized.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 defines the
customer interruption cost index used as a base for
formulating the objective function. Section 3 will describe the
optimal load shedding technique followed by the test system
used in section 4. Section 5 consists of results and analysis of
the results.
II. CUSTOMER INTERRUPTION COST INDEX
To evaluate unreliability cost indices of distribution systems, a
customer interruption cost models for different customers is
needed. A standard industrial classification (SIC) can be used
to divide customers into different segment viz. large user,
industrial, commercial, agriculture, residential, government
and institutions and office and buildings categories. The sector
customer damage functions (SCDF) data used here is taken
from the survey conducted by conducted by the University of
Saskatchewan and Canadian electric power utilities to estimate
customer interruption costs. The survey data have been
analyzed to give sector customer damage functions (SCDFs)
that are then used as customer interruption cost models. The
SCDFs for the seven different customer sectors are shown in
Fig. 1.
The development of composite customer damage model can
be done by weighting each sectoral customer damage function
(SCDF) of the interested area by the ratio energy consumption
to obtain composite customer damage function (CCDF). The
equation is as below:
636 TENCON 2010
 n has been developed. The objective is to minimize the total
CCDF (t ) = ∑ ci × SCDFi (t ) (1) local distribution system interruption cost subject to technical
i =1 constraints. The procedure is discussed in the following
Where: section.
i is customer type, When a distribution system suffers load deficiency caused by
n is a number of each customer type, decrease in generation or sudden increase in demand, system
ci is energy consumption of customer type i, and operators usually open one or more feeders to maintain the
SCDFi is scdf of customer type i. frequency limits and hence integrity of other parts of the
system. A group of feeders need to be shred is called a feeder
The CCDF in equation 1 is in the unit of $/kWpeak. However, set. Feeders have different load capacities and different type of
we can transform it into the unit of $/kWavg to be used in customers. Customers have different per unit customer
outage cost evaluation by using equation 2 damage costs for specific failure durations which we have
discussed in previous paragraph. These damage functions are
n
ci × SCDFi (t ) known as SCDF. By using the survey data the mathematical
CCDF (t ) = ∑ (2) functions of different sectors can be derived. These factors
i =1 LFi affect the total customer interruption cost of the feeder. Using
In this paper a new measure of customer cost has been used. these SCDFs we can formulate the total interruption cost
This measure is inspired by CCDF and explained in next (TIC) of a specific feeder which can be summed up to get the
section. total interruption cost of the bus. This TIC has been used as
the objective function in this paper so that minimizing it will
minimize the economic losses of the system. The final
objective function can be represented as follows:
n
TIC = ∑ Pi * f i (t i ) (3)
i =1
Where:
Pi is the power cut required on ith node
∑ Pi = total required power cut (i.e. power deficit)
fi () is the sectoral cost damage function of ith node
ti is the duration of power cut on ith node.

Figure 1. Customer damage function for different sectors

III. OPTIMUM LOAD SHEDDING TECHNIQUE

When the demand exceeds the power supply and there is not
enough capacity available to serve all the customers connected
to the distribution system, a load-shedding decision must
therefore be made to drop load on the distribution system
feeders. Different techniques of load-shedding can result in
different load point interruption costs. Optimum load shedding
is therefore an important issue.
An optimum load-shedding technique based on the Figure 2. Flowchart for proposed load shedding algorithm
interruption costs of customers and load deficiency matching

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 IV. TEST SYSTEM V. TEST RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The test system we have used here is known as Roy To test the algorithm on RBTS it is assumed that there is a
Billington Test System (RBTS) [31], The RBTS is a 6 bus test sudden increase of 20MW in load for 150 minutes. The
system with five load buses (bus2-bus6). The RBTS has proposed algorithm is applied as give in flow chart. The best
eleven generators and nine transmission lines. The installed results achieved by running GA for several iteration are
capacity is 240 MW and the average load of the system is 185 tabulated as follows:
MW. The one line diagram of RBTS is shown in figure 1.
Usage of different types of customers on all the buses is also TABLE 2. Results
given.
Outage Duration Load to be shed
BUS 1 0 0
BUS 2 0 0.1425
BUS 3 30 0.3759
BUS 4 15 0.0814
BUS 5 60 0.2485
BUS 6 45 19.151

As majority of customers on BUS6 are farm and residential so

the power cut on that bus is maximum, this way the
economical loss can be minimized.
The final TIC in case of above load shedding scenario is
6.8893 $/KW
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper investigates the effect of load-shedding procedures
on distribution system reliability cost indices. An optimum
load-shedding technique is developed to minimize the total
customer interruption costs in a local distribution system.
Customer concerns regarding interruption costs are
incorporated in the load-shedding decision process when a
bulk system deficiency occurs. This algorithm is been tested
on RBTS. This technique has a limitation, as it does not take
care of social issues for load shedding. This bottleneck can be
Figure 3. One line diagram for test system removed by applying different weights to different customer;
these weights will be dependent upon the social importance of
The distribution of different type of customers on all the buses that specific sector.
of RBTS is as shown in the Table 1.
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