In energy management systems, real-time N-1 contingency screening trades assurance for cost: verifying every credible outage with full power flow is too slow, while fast linear-sensitivity screening lacks statistical guarantees, potentially missing unsafe operating points, especially when a controller drives the system into unfamiliar regimes. This paper introduces Audited Selective Verification, a risk-budgeted screening and triage layer for any controller's output (optimization, model-predictive, or learned).
A cheap surrogate suggests which outages to skip; an online audit performs full power flow on a small random sample each window; and a calibrated threshold certifies a thermal-violation-rate bound for the skipped set at a chosen budget and confidence, with a corresponding bound for the unverified trusted subset. Validity hinges on real verification and the audit rather than on surrogate accuracy, making it robust under arbitrary deployment shifts. It serves as a risk-budgeted screen, not a replacement for deterministic verification when policy mandates checking every credible contingency.
On three public transmission systems with up to 1354 buses, the realized violation rate remains within budget, while standard deterministic and calibrated screens become unsafe under shifts. This method reduces full power-flow studies by 29% to 75% per real-time operating point.
Blogger's Review: This study presents an innovative approach to real-time risk control, offering a new solution to balance safety and efficiency in complex systems. Its advantages in handling uncertainty and dynamic changes warrant further exploration and application.