Robustness assessment of power network with renewable energy

•A universal robustness assessment framework for power networks with renewable energy is proposed, which can be used to study the robustness of other infrastructure networks.•The characteristics of power networks with renewable energy are considered. An interval DC power flow model based on uniform sampling technology is established.•The differences between renewable energy generators and conventional generators are considered. Furthermore, three attack strategies are proposed.•The impact of uncertainty in renewable energy on the power network's robustness is considered. The robustness of the power network with renewable energy is studied in this paper. Firstly, the critical nodes are identified by using the interval electrical betweenness metric. On this basis, three different attack strategies are established. Secondly, considering the functional and topological characteristics, the interval DC power flow model based on a uniform sampling technique and the pure topology model are established. Furthermore, the performance of the power network with renewable energy under three attack strategies is assessed from the perspective of structure and function. Finally, the performance changes of the power network with renewable energy and traditional power network under the attack strategy based on interval electrical betweenness are compared. The results show that the interval electrical-betweenness-based attack greatly damages the power network with renewable energy. Taking the improved IEEE 118-node system as an example, the network collapses at the structural level when the number of attacks reaches 22; the network power crashes at the functional level when the number of attacks reaches 9.