SYNCHRONIZATION AND TRANSIENT STABILITY IN POWER NETWORKS AND NONUNIFORM KURAMOTO OSCILLATORS

Motivated by recent interest for multiagent systems and smart grid architectures, we discuss the synchronization problem for the network-reduced model of a power system with nontrivial transfer conductances. Our key insight is to exploit the relationship between the power network model and a first-order model of coupled oscillators. Assuming overdamped generators (possibly due to local excitation controllers), a singular perturbation analysis shows the equivalence between the classic swing equations and a nonuniform Kuramoto model. Here, nonuniform Kuramoto oscillators are characterized by multiple time constants, nonhomogeneous coupling, and nonuniform phase shifts. Extending methods from transient stability, synchronization theory, and consensus protocols, we establish sufficient conditions for synchronization of nonuniform Kuramoto oscillators. These conditions reduce to necessary and sufficient tests for the standard Kuramoto model. Combining our singular perturbation and Kuramoto analyses, we derive concise and purely algebraic conditions that relate synchronization in a power network to the underlying network parameters.