• DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-32917-6
• Corpus ID: 252283645

Understanding Braess’ Paradox in power grids

@article{Schfer2022UnderstandingBP,
  title={Understanding Braess’ Paradox in power grids},
  author={Benjamin Sch{\"a}fer and Thiemo Pesch and Debsankha Manik and J. Gollenstede and Guo-song Lin and Hans-Peter Beck and Dirk Witthaut and Marc Timme},
  journal={Nature Communications},
  year={2022},
  volume={13}
}

• B. Schäfer, T. Pesch, +5 authors M. Timme
• Published 14 September 2022
• Physics
• Nature Communications

The ongoing energy transition requires power grid extensions to connect renewable generators to consumers and to transfer power among distant areas. The process of grid extension requires a large investment of resources and is supposed to make grid operation more robust. Yet, counter-intuitively, increasing the capacity of existing lines or adding new lines may also reduce the overall system performance and even promote blackouts due to Braess’ paradox. Braess’ paradox was theoretically modeled but not yet proven in realistically scaled power grids. Here, we present an experimental setup demonstrating Braess’ paradox in an AC power grid and show how it constrains ongoing large-scale grid extension projects. We present a topological theory that reveals the key mechanism and predicts Braessian grid extensions from the network structure. These results offer a theoretical method to understand and practical guidelines in support of preventing unsuitable infrastructures and the systemic planning of grid extensions. Increasing the capacity of existing lines or adding new lines in power grids may, counterintuitively, reduce the system performance and promote blackouts. The authors propose an approach for prediction of edges that lower system performance and defining potential constrains for grid extensions.