Ultrafast restoration after nationwide blackout: concept, principles & example of application

This paper proposes a novel concept for ultrafast grid restoration after an entire, nationwide power grid blackout. This new approach allows Swiss Federal Railways to reduce power grid restoration time from about 5 hours to a few minutes in order to minimise the impact on railway costumers, i.e. train delays and cancellations. To achieve this reduction in time, the following three main areas need to be optimised. First, simplification of the restoration process so as to reduce the number of switching operations. Second, implementation of automation and intelligent functionalities in the centralised remote-control system. And third, optimisation of the power plants' tripping behaviour. Whenever it is not essential, the generators should not shut down after tripping in order that the generator can be rapidly re-synchronised to the power grid.