Generator grouping cutset determination based on tree construction and constrained spectral clustering

With the advent of wide area monitoring protection and control, the new wide area control and protection applications emerge that require the identification of zones or islands in the network subject to certain specific requirements. The requirement of retaining certain buses in the same network zone or island appears in several power system protection applications, including intentional controlled islanding and parallel power system restoration. This study describes a new algorithm to define islands in power networks with respect to the specified bus grouping constraints. The method is based on the construction of tree subgraphs spanning the buses of each group, and its superior performance is demonstrated by a comparison with the two state-of-the-art methods from the literature.