Small-Signal Stability Analysis of Numerical Integration Methods

The paper provides a novel framework to study the accuracy and stability of numerical integration schemes when employed for the time domain simulation of power systems. A matrix pencil-based approach is adopted to evaluate the error between the dynamic modes of the power system and the modes of the approximated discrete-time system arising from the application of the numerical method. The proposed approach can provide meaningful insights on how different methods compare to each other when applied to a power system, while being general enough to be systematically utilized for, in principle, any numerical method. The framework is illustrated for a handful of well-known explicit and implicit methods, while simulation results are presented based on the WSCC 9-bus system, as well as on a 1,479-bus dynamic model of the All-Island Irish Transmission System.