Multistability and variations in basin of attraction in power-grid systems

Power grids sustain modern society by supplying electricity and thus their stability is a crucial factor for our civilization. The dynamic stability of a power grid is usually quantified by the probability of its nodes' recovery to phase synchronization of the alternating current it carries, in response to external perturbation. Intuitively, the stability of nodes in power grids is supposed to become more robust as the coupling strength between the nodes increases. However, we find a counterintuitive range of coupling strength values where the synchronization stability suddenly droops as the coupling strength increases, on a number of simple graph structures. Since power grids are designed to fulfill both local and long-range power demands, such simple graph structures or graphlets for local power transmission are indeed relevant in reality. We show that the observed nonmonotonic behavior is a consequence of transitions in multistability, which are related to changes in stability of the unsynchronized states. Therefore, our findings suggest that a comprehensive understanding of changes in multistability are necessary to prevent the unexpected catastrophic instability in the building blocks of power grids.