Dynamical modelling of cascading failures in the Turkish power grid

A reliable supply of electricity is critical for our modern society and any large scale disturbances of the electrical system causes substantial costs. In 2015, one overloaded transmission line caused a cascading failure in the Turkish power grid, affecting about 75 million people. We focus on the dynamical and statistical properties of the Turkish power grid as a real-world system example that can be modelled based on complex networks structures and we propose for the first time a model that incorporates the dynamical properties of the Turkish power grid as a complex network topology by investigating these cascading failures. We find that the network damage depends on the load and generation distribution in the network with centralized generation being more susceptible to failures than a decentralized one. Furthermore, economic considerations on transmission line capacity are shown to conflict with stability.