Analysis of cascading failure in complex power networks under the load local preferential redistribution

In recent years several global blackouts have drawn a lot of attention to security problems in electric power transmission systems. Here we analyze the cascading failure in complex power networks based on the local preferential redistribution rule of the broken node's load, where the weight of a node is correlated with its link degree k as k(beta). It is found that there exists a threshold alpha* such that cascading failure is induced and enhanced when the value of tolerance parameter is smaller than the threshold. It is also found that the larger beta is the more robust the power network is. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.