M. Aghamohammadi; M. Zare; A. Maghami

ABSTRACT
Protective system failures are a contributing factor in power system blackouts. The most troublesome
protection system failures are hidden failures, which remain dormant during normal system conditions,
and are exposed during system disturbances. It has been observed that distance relay hidden failure
resonate cascading failures and blackouts. In this paper at first, we have described generic scenario of a
cascading blackout and then have modeled all major elements in New England 39-bus system. Simulation
on this study case shows that we can recognize distance relay hidden failures in any operation point and
make suitable preventive operation, such as distance relay zone 3 blocking, to prevent power system
blackout.

KEYWORDS
BLACKOUT, CASCADING FAILURE, HIDDEN FAILURE, DISTANCE PROTECTION .