$\mathcal{H}_2$-norm transmission switching to improve synchronism of low-inertia power grids

Abstract: This paper investigates the utilization of transmission switching to improve synchronization performance of low-inertia grids. The synchronization performance of power girds is first measured by the $\mathcal{H}_2$ norm of linearized power systems. Laplacian-based bounds and a close-form formulation of the $\mathcal{H}_2$-norm synchronization performance metric are derived to reveal the influence of network structure on synchronization performance. Furthermore, a transmission switching approach is developed by analyzing the sensitivity of the $\mathcal{H}_2$-norm metric to perturbation of network susceptance. Effectiveness of the proposed approach to improve synchronization performance is demonstrated using the SciGRID network for Germany.