Better Understanding Network of Electrical Terminal Stations by Topological Analysis

Abstract

Preventing power transmission failures in its network of electrical terminal stations is a major concern for the infrastructure of the Thai capital Bangkok and its vicinity. Towards this objective the present study aims to analyse the network and its reliability under conditions of increased demand. The analysis is based on a representation of the network as a graph allowing to identify the most important terminal stations by graph-theoretical terms. These are, in particular, the centrality measures Degree Centrality (DC) giving the number of a station’s one-hop neighbours, Closeness Centrality (CC) describing the efficiency of power transmission from one station to others, shortest-path Betweenness Centrality (BC) indicating the number of a station’s occurrences on the shortest paths between indirectly connected stations, Hub describing stations that are connected to a large number of important stations, and Authority indicating the stations that connect many important stations. Experimental results revealed that the Bangkok Noi station was most significant when the measures DC, CC and BC were considered and, on the other hand, that the North Bangkok station was vital in terms of CC, Hub and Authority. Therefore, these stations need to be closely monitored and their operation to be carried out with extreme care in order to prevent the occurrence of power transmission failures within the Bangkok metropolitan area.