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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN
ELEC TRIC AL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

Ricardo Moreno Chuquen

Harold R. Chamorro

Graph Theory
Applications
to Deregulated
Power Systems
SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer
Engineering

Series Editors
Woon-Seng Gan, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
C.-C. Jay Kuo, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Thomas Fang Zheng, Research Institute of Information Technology, Tsinghua
University, Beijing, China
Mauro Barni, Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University
of Siena, Siena, Italy
SpringerBriefs present concise summaries of cutting-edge research and practical
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10059

Ricardo Moreno Chuquen Harold R. Chamorro
•

Graph Theory Applications

to Deregulated Power
Systems

123
Ricardo Moreno Chuquen Harold R. Chamorro
Universidad Autónoma de Occidente KU Leuven
Cali, Colombia Leuven, Belgium

ISSN 2191-8112 ISSN 2191-8120 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering
ISBN 978-3-030-57588-5 ISBN 978-3-030-57589-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57589-2
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
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Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Background and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Scope and Contribution of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Book Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Topological Characterization of Power Systems
Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3 Identification of Multiple Subnetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1 Identification of Two Subnetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2 Algebraic Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3 Identification of K-Subnetworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.4 Illustrative Examples: the IEEE 118-Bus System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4 Network Robustness for Power Systems . . . . . . . . . ............. 19
4.1 Quantification of the Network Robustness . . . . . ............. 20
4.2 Illustrative Examples: 68-Bus and 118-Bus IEEE Test
Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. 23
4.3 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. 25
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. 25
5 Security Strategies Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 27
5.1 Hierarchical Islanding of Power System as a Security
Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.2 Illustrating the Hierarchical Islanding Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.2.1 A Medium Size Network Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.2.2 A Large Size Network Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.2.3 Concluding Remarks About Hierarchical
Islanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... 36

v
vi Contents

5.3 Quantification of Grid-Impactive Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

5.3.1 Identification of Critical Transmission Lines . . . . . . . . . . . 37
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6 Cyber Physical Systems Security for the Smart Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.1 Energy Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.2 Cyber Physical Systems Security for the Smart Grid . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.3 Network Topology Processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6.4 Electricity Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6.5 Transmission Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.6 Defense Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.7 Concluding Remarks and Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.1 Future Research Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Graph example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 2

Fig. 1.2 Graph example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 2
Fig. 2.1 Topological characterization of the 68-bus system . . . . . . . . . .. 7
Fig. 2.2 Topological characterization of the IEEE 118-bus test
system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 7
Fig. 3.1 Ten Islands identified for the graph model of IEEE 118-bus
test system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Fig. 3.2 Ten Islands identified for the IEEE 118-bus test system . . . . . . . 15
Fig. 4.1 Fully connected 5-bus network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Fig. 4.2 5-bus network with a robustness index of 81%. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Fig. 4.3 5-bus network with a robustness of 46% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Fig. 4.4 68-bus test system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Fig. 4.5 IEEE 118-bus system and four subnetwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Fig. 5.1 General algorithm to develop Hierarchical Islanding . . . . . . . . . . 30
Fig. 5.2 68-bus system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Fig. 5.3 Separation of 68-bus test system into two Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Fig. 5.4 Second request to divide the Island 1 into two Islands . . . . . . . . 33
Fig. 5.5 Second request to divide the Island 2 into two Islands . . . . . . . . 33
Fig. 5.6 118-bus test system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Fig. 5.7 Separation of the 118-bus test system into two Islands . . . . . . . . 34
Fig. 5.8 Separation of the Island 1 into two Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Fig. 5.9 Separation of the Island 2 into two Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Fig. 5.10 Critical transmission lines connecting NETS and NYPS
in 68-bus system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Fig. 5.11 Five Islands identified for the IEEE 118-bus test system . . . . . . 38
Fig. 5.12 Two subnetworks in the IEEE 39-bus system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Fig. 5.13 LODFs of all lines when the lines are tripped out . . . . . . . . . . . 40

vii
List of Tables

Table 3.1 Tie transmission lines for the IEEE 118-bus system . . . . . . . . . 16
Table 4.1 Robustness index for EEE 118-buses system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Table 5.1 Robustness index for EEE 118-buses system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Table 5.2 Two subnetworks for the 68-bus system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Table 5.3 Division of 118-bus system into two Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Table 5.4 Buses belonging to the Islands 3 and 4 for the 118-bus
system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 36
Table 5.5 Buses belonging to the Islands 5 and 6 for the 118-bus
system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 36
Table 5.6 LODFs for the 118-bus system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 39

ix
Chapter 1
Introduction

Abstract In this chapter, we describe the setting for the problems of interest for the
work presented in this book. We first introduce the background and the motivation
of our research. Then, we present the scope of this report and highlight the major
contributions if this work. We end with an outline the contents of the remainder of
this chapter.

1.1 Background and Motivation

Networks are present in almost every aspect of our life. The world surrounding us
is full of networks. Social networks consist of relationships among social entities
(i.e., friends, colleagues, relatives, etc.). Relationships among firms, vendors, manu-
facturers, and producers of raw material represent economic networks. On the other
hand, technological networks such as the Internet, the computer data network that
represents the interaction among computers connected by physical data connections.
The World Wide Web network, associated with the Internet, consists of web pages
connected by “hyperlinks”. Also, Communication networks consist of telephones
and mobiles phones. The focus of this book is on the power system networks that
have evolved into the largest and most complex system of the technological age.
Additionally, transportation system constitutes important networks i.e., cities and
countries are connected by road or airline networks. Most recently, networks have
become important in biology, in concrete to study three fields; the first one is related
with biochemical networks, such as metabolic networks, protein-protein interaction
networks, and genetic regulatory networks. A metabolic network is a representation
of the chemical reactions that fuel cells and organism. The second one, it’s the appli-
cation of networks to gain insight into neural networks that consist of the interaction
among neurons, ecological networks are the third field of study in which are studied
the interaction among species i.e., predator-prey relationships.
The study of networks had a long history in mathematics and the sciences. Specif-
ically, graph theory has been the mathematical language for describing the properties
of networks. Graph theory is rooted in the eighteen century when the mathematician
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1
R. Moreno Chuquen et al., Graph Theory Applications to Deregulated Power Systems,
SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57589-2_1
2 1 Introduction

Leonard Euler became interested in the Konigsberg Bridge Problem. Konigsberg was
a flowering city in eastern Prussia which was built on the banks of the Pregel River,
and on two islands that lie in midstream. Seven bridges connected the land masses.
The people from Konigsberg amused themselves with mind puzzles, one of which
was: “Can one walk across the seven bridges and never cross the same one twice?”
Euler proved that this path does not exist. Euler’s great insight lay in viewing the
Konigsberg Bridge Problem as a graph by replacing each of the four land masses
with nodes and each bridge with a link, obtaining a graph with four nodes and seven
links. The proof is based on the number of links associated with each node; nodes
with an odd number of links must be either the starting or the end point of the journey.
Thus, a path crossing the seven bridges cannot exist because the Konigsberg graph
had more than two nodes with an odd number of links [1] (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2).

Fig. 1.1 Graph example

Fig. 1.2 Graph example

1.2 Scope and Contribution of This Book 3

1.2 Scope and Contribution of This Book

The backbone of the power system grid is the transmission system whose main
function is maintaining the connection among substations to supply electric energy
with a certain level of security. The interconnection of several substations provides
enough connecting paths to maintain the integrity of the grid. Some particular set
of transmission lines allow sharing resources, such as generation reserves, which
increases the reliability of the power grid. Therefore, the transmission system plays
a major role in the continuous operation of the power grid. The security and reliability
of the power systems depends to a large extent on the interconnectivity level of the
power systems networks. However, the power grids are often not meshed enough
because the investment in the construction of the transmission lines is very expensive.
Thus, the quantification of structural properties can provide meaningful information
needed to assess and enhance the reliability and security of power system networks.
We propose the extensively usage of graph theory to characterize the power system
network structure. Graph theory offers a complete mathematical formulation which
is very useful to capture the structure of any graph. We develop a comprehensive
characterization of the networks associated to power systems based on the graph
theory mathematics but considering the intrinsic and unique structural properties of
the power systems.
Specifically, we deduce valuable results from spectral graph theory to study and
gain insight in the topological properties of power networks. Spectral graph theory is
a study of the spectra of matrices that characterize properties of a graph. Matrices like
the degree matrix, adjacency matrix, and the Laplacian matrix have eigenvalues and
eigenvectors that can give important information about the structure of the system
and its intrinsic robustness.

1.3 Book Outline

This book contains six additional chapters. We start with a complete topological
characterization of the structure of the power system networks in Chap. 2. We use
extensively graph theoretic concepts to capture the structure of the power system
networks. We propose a modified version of the admittance matrix which is similar,
mathematically speaking, to the structure and properties of the laplacian matrix.
In Chap. 3, we formulate the identification of k subnetworks in a power system
network as an unconstrained optimization problem. We use the mathematical rep-
resentation deduced in the Chap. 2 to formulate the problem, we find out that the
solution of this problem is on the eigenspace of the Laplacian matrix that represents
the power grid.
We deduce an index to quantify the network robustness in Chap. 4. We provide a
concept of network robustness based on the topological firmness of the interconnec-
tion among substations through of the transmission system. We study the network
4 1 Introduction

robustness of the IEEE 118-bus system based on the index deduced and we find out
interesting results about the structure of this particular system.
In Chap. 5, we develop a tool which is focused on security strategies. We call
this strategy as “Hierarchical Islanding”. This tool was developed as a software tool
based mainly on two modules: Topological Module (TM) and Spectral Analysis
Module (SAM). The strategy offers the possibility to power system operators to
eject an islanding-action to mitigate grid-impactive events. Additionally, this chapter
presents some security studies based on the critical tie lines connecting subnetwork
using the so-called Power Transfer Distribution Factors (PTDFs).
In Chap. 6, we discuss about cyber physical system security. This topic has
received intense attention from the power system society during the last years. We
discuss about different types of attacks to Energy Management System (EMS) and
about the impact of these attacks over the operation of the power systems including
the electricity markets.
Concluding remarks are provided in Chap. 7. We summarize the work presented
together with discussion directions for future research to extend the results in this
work.
This book has three appendices. Appendix A.1 provides a summary of the
acronyms and the notation used in the book. In Appendix , we provide both the state-
ment of an equation and the solution of a quadratic optimization problem used in the
Chap. 3.

Reference

1. Barabási A-L, Linked: The New Science of Networks. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, 2002
Chapter 2
Topological Characterization of Power
Systems Networks

Abstract This chapter presents detailed graph theoretic concepts with emphasis on
applications on power system problems. Since the interest is in the disclosure of
important network properties, it considers the construction of the adjacency, degree
and the Laplacian matrices and the properties that can be deduced from them. Specif-
ically, this chapter deduces results from the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the adja-
cency and Laplacian matrices related with network properties. Moreover, this chapter
includes a complete explanation and deduction from an optimization point of view
for all results and his insights for applications.

We consider a power system consisting of N + 1 buses and E lines. We denote by

N = {0, 1, . . . , N } the set of network nodes, with the bus 0 being the slack bus
and by L = {l1 , l2 , . . . , l E } the set of transmission lines lines and transformers that
connect the nodes in the set N. Each line lm ∈ N, m = {1, . . . , E} is associated with
an unordered pair of nodes (i, j). For power system networks we do not consider
any self-loops associated with a node pair (i, i). The network may have two or more
transmission lines associated with the same node pair (i, j) i.e., parallel transmission
lines. We associate the undirected graph G = {N, L} with the power system network.
The graph Gw = {Nw , Lw } is a subgraph of G = {N, L} whenever all nodes Nw ⊂
N and all the transmission lines Lw ⊂ L. We use the terms graph and network
interchangeably in the remainder of this chapter.
We characterize algebraically the graph G = {N, L} by the connectivity, the
degree, and the Laplacian matrices, denoted by A, D and, L respectively. A is a
(N + 1) × (N + 1) matrix whose elements indicate the number of lines that directly
connected the node pair (i, j) [1]. Whenever the node pair (i, j) is not directly con-
nected the corresponding element of A, ai, j is equal to zero. By definition A = A T .
The degree di of the node i ∈ N, i = {0, 1, . . . , N }, is defined as the number of
transmission lines incident with the bus i.
We construct D to be the diagonal matrix,

D = diag {d0 , d1 , . . . , dn } (2.1)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 5

R. Moreno Chuquen et al., Graph Theory Applications to Deregulated Power Systems,
SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57589-2_2
6 2 Topological Characterization of Power Systems Networks

The Laplacian matrix L provides a mathematical relationship between the matri-

ces A and D since,
L=D−A (2.2)

Clearly, the elements of L are

⎧
⎨ di = vid i id
Li, j = −ai j = vid i id (2.3)
⎩
0 = −vid i id

L provides a succinct measure of the connectivity in G. We make extension use

of the useful algebraic properties of L [2]. The matrix L is by inspection, symmetric
and L is singular because L1 = 0 where 1 = [1, 1, . . . , 1]T . This property indicates
that L has at least one zero eigenvalue. Moreover, L is positive semidefinite, all its
eigenvalues are non-negative. We order the (N + 1) eigenvalues λi of L in non-
decreasing order λ1 ≤ λ2 ≤ λ3 ≤ · · · ≤ λ N +1 . Additional properties of L are given
in [3, 4].
We consider the graph G = {N, L} graph that represents a power network
 and its
constitute subgraphs G1 = {N1 , L1 }, G2 = {N2 , L2 }, GG = NG , LG . The set of G
subnetworks G1 = {N1 , L1 }, G2 = {N2 , L2 } , . . . , Gk = {Nk , Lk } of G are disjoint
if N1 ∩ N2 ∩ · · · ∩ Nk = ∅ with and N1 ∪ N2 ∪ · · · ∪ Nk = N. The elements of L∩
are the interconnecting lines of the G subnetworks. Each such line is characterized
in terms of its node pair (i, j) with i ∈ Nk and j ∈ Nk  , k = k  .
The connectivity of the graph G = {N, L} and its constituent subnetworks G1 =
{N1 , L1 }, G2 = {N2 , L2 } , . . . , Gk = {Nk , Lk } may be deduced from its spectral
information. The eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the Laplacian matrix L reveal
intrinsic information about structural properties of the power networks which could
be used extensively in a wide range of security problems. The connectivity of a graph
G is formally defined in terms of paths that connect all the buses N.

Definition 2.1 A graph G is connected if and only if for every node pair there exist
a path from i to j [5].

Matrix L has been defined as a real, symmetric and positive semidefinite that
measures the connectivity among buses. During the development of this book we
propose selecting a modified version of the impedance matrix as Laplacian matrix in
virtue that both matrices have the same mathematical structure. The laplacian matrix
L could be taken as a real approximation of the impedance matrix Zbus . The inverse of
Zbus corresponds to the admittance matrix Ybus = Gbus + Bbus which is sparse. For
practical transmission power systems the admittance matrix can be approximated by
the susceptance matrix Ybus ≈ Bbus . The matrix Bbus is real, symmetric and negative
semidefinite. The matrix L may be taken as the negative of the inverse susceptance
matrix B−1
bus which is real, symmetric and positive semidefinite.
2 Topological Characterization of Power Systems Networks 7

Fig. 2.1 Topological characterization of the 68-bus system

Fig. 2.2 Topological characterization of the IEEE 118-bus test system

This book will illustrate various concepts using standard electrical systems. We
will choose a medium scale system as the 68-bus system and a large scale system as
IEEE 118-bus system to study different applications. The 68-bus test power system
is a reduced order equivalent of the interconnected New England test system (NETS)
and New York Power System (NYPS). There are five geographical regions; the areas
3, 4 and 5 represent equivalent dynamical systems [6]. The corresponding topological
structure of this system represented as a graph is showed in the Fig. 2.1. The IEEE
118-bus system model described in [7] is a standard electrical system well known in
the research community; and its topological characterization is illustrated in the Fig.
2.2
8 2 Topological Characterization of Power Systems Networks

References

1. Linked: the new science of networks, 1st edn. Perseus Books Group
2. Godsil C, Royle GF, Algebraic graph theory. Graduate texts in mathematics, Springer,
Berlin. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387952413. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
4613-0163-9
3. Chung F, Laplacians and the Cheeger inequality for directed graphs 9(1):1–19. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1007/s00026-005-0237-z
4. Spielman DA (2010) Algorithms, graph theory, and linear equations in laplacian matrices. In:
Proceedings of the international congress of mathematicians 2010 (ICM 2010), Published by
Hindustan Book Agency (HBA), India. WSPC Distribute for All Markets Except in India, pp
2698–2722
5. Bollobas B, Modern graph theory. Graduate texts in mathematics, Springer, Berlin. https://www.
springer.com/gp/book/9780387984889, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0619-4
6. Pal B, Chaudhuri B, Robust control in power systems power electronics and power sys-
tems. Springer, US. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387259499. https://doi.org/10.
1007/b136490
7. [Online] Available: http://www.ee.washington.edu/research/pstca/pf118/pg_tca118fig.htm
Chapter 3
Identification of Multiple Subnetworks

Abstract The structure of the power system networks is a function of the status of
each transmission line. Our focus in this chapter is on the topological assessment
with the objective to develop a practical scheme to identify the tie lines that connect
the constituent sub-networks in the grid structure. We develop a useful topological
characterization of the power system network based on graph theoretic concepts to
gain insights into its structural properties. The identification of multiple sub-networks
provides effective schemes to analyze critical contingencies.

Network structural analysis has been applied to study a wide range of applications in
different fields. Research in biology used a graph theoretic approach to characterize
the structure of molecules [1, 2]. The study of the World Wide Web network as a
graph allows the identification of useful connectivity properties [3, 4]. The structure
of the mobile communication network is analyzed to evaluate its connectivity [5].
The broad range of interactions between individuals in society is well modeled as a
social network [6]. The focus of this chapter is on the structural analysis of the power
system network topology.
There exist various approaches to identify subnetworks and the tie lines that
interconnect them. The identification of tie lines offers practical information for the
security assessment of the power system [7, 8]. Some papers have proposed search
techniques to identify cut-sets based on a slow coherency approach [9–11]. Simu-
lated annealing is used to identify subnetworks in order to reduce the use of parallel
computers systems [12]. Another approach uses a reduce network of the original
power system network searching for subnetworks based on decision diagrams [13].
The identification of observable islands in an unobservable network is studied in [14];
the boundaries are defined based on the monitoring of line flows. The transmission
lines near to its full capacity and geographically aspects are taken into consideration
to identify tie lines in the proposal of [15]. Although these schemes to identify sub-
networks or islands use graph-theoretic concepts, they use simplified graph models.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 9

R. Moreno Chuquen et al., Graph Theory Applications to Deregulated Power Systems,
SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57589-2_3
10 3 Identification of Multiple Subnetworks

These kinds of simplifications involve missing of information about the structural

properties of power system networks. Combinatorial methods faced a computation-
ally expensive issue because are based on the evaluation of several scenarios. In this
chapter, we address the need of a complete topological characterization of power
system networks and so the identification of multiple subnetworks based on spectral
information about the grid. The scheme proposed in this paper is useful to perform
effectively security analysis because the identification of tie lines is a critical prop-
erty studied for power system security [16]. Each power system network may be
conceived as the arrangement of various subnetworks which are connected between
them through of specific tie lines. These tie lines play an important role in the net-
work structure since the removal leads to island formation [17]. In other words, the
lines connecting a particular subnetwork to the whole network reflect the robustness
of the system with respect to disturbances [18].
We propose the development of a graph theoretic approach to assess the power sys-
tem network from a structural perspective. A range of problems in the area of power
system security may be addressed using information deduced from the topological
analysis of the power system network. Specifically, the identification of transmis-
sion lines connecting subnetworks gives us useful information about the structural
function of tie lines. Each network has some specific set of transmission lines whose
structural function is to maintain the connection of the whole network. Thus, the
removing of one of these lines is more critical for the system in terms of the con-
nectivity than the removing of any other line. For security studies, the impacts of tie
lines outages into the power system network could be quantified using the informa-
tion deduced from the topological assessment. We use the so-called power transfer
distribution factors (PTDFs) to quantify the impact of line outages on the non-outaged
lines’ flows.

3.1 Identification of Two Subnetworks

To start out, we study the problem of the identification of two subnetworks of a power
system. We define r as the indicator vector, whose elements ri we associate with each
node i ∈ N of the power system, where ri = +1 if bus i belongs to subnetwork 1
or ri = −1 if the bus i belongs to subnetwork 2. Note that r satisfies rT r. If we
assume a particular indicator vector r to identify two subnetworks of G, represented
by two graphs G1 = and G2 =, then there is a particular set of transmission lines
L12 = connecting the subnetworks G1 and G2 = which can be expressed in terms
of the external connections L1 and as The cardinality of can be quantified using the
indicator vector
1   2
Li, j = ri − r j (3.1)
2 i, j∈N
3.1 Identification of Two Subnetworks 11

The quadratic form of the matrix L is rT Lr which is constructed using particularly

the indicator vector r. We show in Appendix that the expression in (3.1) may be
written using the quadratic form of L, given as follows

1   2
ri − r j = rT Lr (3.2)
2 i, j∈N

The only non-zero terms in the sum in (3.2) are those that correspond to the set
of transmission lines that connect a node in network G1 to a node in network G2 .
The identification problem determines the set of transmission lines L12 connecting
G1 and G2 , whose union constitutes G, by solving the quadratic problem as follows:
 
min rT Lr (3.3)

subject to,
rT r = N (3.4)

1T r = q (3.5)

ri = ±1 (3.6)

The condition in (3.4) affirms that every node is assigned to one of the two sub-
networks, and the condition (3.5) specifies that the number of nodes inside one
subnetwork is equal to q. The solution of the optimization is presented in Appendix
and is given by the vector r∗ that solves,

(L − λI) r∗ = 0 (3.7)

For the second smallest eigenvalue λ of L, r∗ is the corresponding eigenvector.

We consider the solution r = to be trivial and it corresponds to the subnetwork G1
being the entire network and the empty subnetwork G2 = ∅∅ , while such a partition
of the network is valid it is not useful. This trivial solution corresponds to the smallest
eigenvalue λ = 0.
For rT Lr to be minimum, we select the eigenvalue λ2 , i.e., the smallest nonzero
magnitude eigenvalue. Consequently, r∗ is an eigenvector corresponding to λ2 . The
second smallest eigenvalue λ2 provides information on the network partitioning into
the subnetworks G1 , and its complement G2 . Therefore, the indicator vector r must
be chosen to be a scaled value of the eigenvector r∗ . Choosing r to be as close to
parallel with v2 as possible provides the solution [19]. This means maximizing the
dot product:  
 T    

v r  =  v2 r i  = v2 (3.8)
2
 
i i
12 3 Identification of Multiple Subnetworks

The second relation follows by the triangle inequality and becomes equality only
when all terms in the first sum are either positive or negative. The maximum of v2T r
is reached when v2i ri ≥ 0 for all i, or equivalently, when ri has the same sign as the
component i of v2 . Then, the maximum is obtained under the condition [19]:

+1 = v2
ri = (3.9)
−1 = v2

This development has shown that the identification problem of a graph is trans-
formed into an eigenvalue and eigenvector problem involving the graph Laplacian.
The spectral information extracted from the Laplacian matrix allows the direct iden-
tification of two islands.

3.2 Algebraic Connectivity

There is an alternative approach to demonstrate the interesting properties given by the

spectral information deduced of the Laplacian matrix. The properties of the second
eigenvalue λ2 and the corresponding eigenvector v2 of the Laplacian matrix reveal
connectivity properties of a graph how was deduced before. The eigenpair (λ2 , v2 )
was called the Algebraic Connectivity of G by Fiedler [20, 21]. The following is a
summary of his observations. If L is positive semidefinite matrix then the second
smallest eigenvalue is equal to:
 
v2 Lv2
λ2 = min (3.10)
v2T v2

by the Courant-Fischer theorem [22]. Let G be a connected graph, and let v2 be

the eigenvector corresponding to λ2 . The subgraphs induced by each one of the
conditions of (12) are connected [21].
The components of the second eigenvector are assigned to the vertices of G; so
that each node of an interconnected power system will be assigned a value based
on the corresponding value of the second eigenvector of the Laplacian matrix (that
is, if the node has number k, the kth component of the second eigenvector will be
associated with it).
The Cheeger’s inequality [23] provides an explanation why the second eigenvalue
and the corresponding eigenvector can be used for efficiently partitioning a graph.
The graph-theoretic version of the Cheeger’s inequality presented in this paper is
based on [24, 25]. The graph bisection problem is to find a set of buses Nw such that
is a subset of N, in notation such that the number of buses in Nw is almost half of N

|N|
Nw ⊆ (3.11)
2
3.2 Algebraic Connectivity 13

(the operator |.| refers to cardinality), in fact minimizing the set of cut edges:

(i, j) ∈ (3.12)

To find a minimal cut, we will introduce a cut ratio,

|∂Gw |
ϕ(G) ≡ (3.13)
∂Nw ∂ (N − Nw )

where ∂(Gw ) is called the boundary of Nw it denotes the number of edges with one
end point in Gw and the other in G − Gw is defined by:

d(Nw ) ≡ d (i) (3.14)
i∈Nw

where d (i) is the degree of the vertex i. The cut ratio is also called the conductance.
The partitioning problem is to find the set of lines with minimum conductance. This
minimum defines the conductance of a graph G thus:

(G) = minϕ (Nw ) (3.15)

The graph conductance (G) has bounds given by the Cheeger’s inequality:
√
λ2 2 2λ2
≤ (G) ≤ (3.16)
d (N) d (N)

The graph theoretic version of (11) is [25]:

(G) ≤ 2 2λ2 (3.17)

3.3 Identification of K-Subnetworks

The extension of the formulation to identify multiple islands into power systems can
be modeled as an optimization problem with a quadratic objective function extended
to k dimensions. The objective function may be written as:


k
min riT Lri (3.18)
i=1

where each ri indicator vector assigns a coordinate for each bus into the k-
dimensional space. This problem is constrained by the orthogonality condition:
14 3 Identification of Multiple Subnetworks

rT ri = 1 (3.19)

The mathematical solution is obtained following the procedure explained in

Appendix . The solution is given by:

L − λi I = 0 (3.20)

The solution is a nontrivial if λi is nonzero eigenvalue of L and ri is its corre-

sponding eigenvector. The premultiplication of (3.13) by riT with the constraint of
(15) holding results in:

λi = I = ST S (3.21)

If follows that the minimum value of (3.11) results for the sum of the k smallest
nonzero eigenvalues. The corresponding k eigenvectors are the solution to identify
k islands. We construct the matrix S ∈ , whose columns are the k normalized eigen-
vectors of the matrix L corresponding with the k smallest nonzero eigenvalues. The
matrix S is an orthogonal matrix, satisfying:

SST = I = ST S (3.22)

Where, I is the identity matrix. If, the matrix  is the diagonal matrix of nonzero
eigenvalues,

 = diag [λ2 , λ3 , . . . , λ N ] (3.23)

Then, the singular value decomposition for L is given by the orthogonal matrix S
and the diagonal matrix ,

SLST =  (3.24)

The node i is associated with the row i of the matrix S to assign each node to
a particular subnetwork k. The row i is interpreted as the coordinates of the bus i
in, each node of the power system network is associated a vector represented by
the row i. We use the squared Euclidean distance to decide the membership of each
bus to a particular subnetwork k. The usage of this criterion based on the spectral
information obtained from the Laplacian matrix gives us insight about the relative
position of each node inside of the power system network. The vector i associated
to the bus i with a high relative value of squared Euclidean distance implies that the
corresponding bus is far away to the boundaries with other subnetworks. Meanwhile,
small relative value of the squared Euclidean distance implies that the corresponding
bus is close to the boundaries with other subnetworks.
3.4 Illustrative Examples: the IEEE 118-Bus System 15

3.4 Illustrative Examples: the IEEE 118-Bus System

We illustrate the application of the identification of multiple islands. Security analyses

are developed to evaluate the static security of the power systems based on the
identification of k-islands. In the connected IEEE 118-bus test system, we identify
ten islands considering the status of each line to determine the system connectivity,

Fig. 3.1 Ten Islands identified for the graph model of IEEE 118-bus test system

1 2 G G G G G G
Island 3 40 41 42 53 54 56 55 59
3 G 7
11 39
12
G Island 5 33 63
4 11 52 57 58
14
37 44 60
G 51
G 15 34 43
6 7 13 50
5
G 48 64
G G36 45 G 61
19 G
Island 1 16 35 G
G
17 46 49
18 47
G G Island 6
8 113 30
20
31 Island 4 38
9 29 G G 67
32 21 69 68 66
22 G 62
10 28 11
4 5
11 116
24 G G
G 70 G 65
27 G G 72 G
23 7
G Island 2 26 G 1 79 G
G 73
25
G G G 76 78 81 G
118 80 99
Island 7 74 G
77 98
75 97 106
G
82 96
100 G G G
83
G 104 105 107
84 95 94
Island 10 93 G 108
85 G G Island 9
88 89 92
G 103 109
G 86 G
87 G
90 91 102 101 110 G G112
G 111
Island 8 G

Fig. 3.2 Ten Islands identified for the IEEE 118-bus test system
16 3 Identification of Multiple Subnetworks

Table 3.1 Tie transmission lines for the IEEE 118-bus system
Set TL1 {(3, 5), (4, 11), (5, 11), (6, 7), (8, 30)}
Set TL2 {(17, 16), (17, 15), (30, 38), (23, 22), (23, 24), (30, 8)}
Set TL3 {(3, 5), (4, 11), (5, 11), (6, 7), (16, 17), (15, 17), (15, 19), (15, 33)}
Set TL4 {(19, 15), (19, 34), (18, 17), (22, 23)}
Set TL5 {(33, 15), (34, 19), (38, 30), (38, 65), (49, 66), (49, 51), (49, 50), (49, 54), (49, 69), (47, 69)}
Set TL6 {(54, 49), (50, 49), (51, 49), (66, 49), (65, 116), (65, 38)}
Set TL7 {(68, 65), (69, 49), (69, 47), (24, 23), (77, 82), (80, 97), (80, 96), (80, 98), (80, 99)}
Set TL8 {(83, 82), (89, 92), (91, 92)}
Set TL9 {(106, 100), (104, 100), (103, 100)}
Set TL10 {(99, 80), (98, 80), (96, 80), (92, 89), (97, 80), (82, 77), (82, 83), (92, 91), (100, 106), (100, 104), (100, 103)}

the construction of the matrix is based whether or not a line in the power system
network is connected. We construct the matrix L based on the eigenvectors of L
corresponding to the first ten smallest nonzero eigenvalues of L. Figure 3.1 show
ten islands identified for the graph model of IEEE 118-bus system. Figure 3.2 show
the ten subnetwork in the IEEE 118-bus electrical system. The tie transmission lines
that allow the identification of ten islands are summarized in the Table 3.1. The sets
of transmission lines denoted by TL1 , TL2 , TL3 , TL4 , TL5 , TL6 , TL7 , TL8 , TL9 and
TL10 are the tie lines connecting each island with the whole network. These results
allow the deduction of relevant information for security analysis, for instance, we
observe that the islands 8 and 9 are connected individually with the whole network
through of three transmission lines while the island 10 is connected with the whole
network through of eleven transmission lines.

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Chapter 4
Network Robustness for Power Systems

Abstract The identification of critical transmission lines and critical substations in

power systems is prerequisite for security assessment studies because it provides
effective schemes to analyze critical contingencies. Sometimes the power network
exhibit high vulnerability related with critical transmission lines interconnecting
critical substations from a physical point of view. This chapter describes a method
to quantify the relative importance level of each substation for the connectivity of
the whole network. Vulnerability studies are performed effectively using informa-
tion about critical tie lines and about critical substations. Additionally, this chapter
presents some security studies based on the critical tie lines connecting subnetwork
using the so-called Power Transfer Distribution Factors (PTDFs).

While the topology information is, in principle, simple to understand, the determina-
tion of a robustness criterion is more complicated. This chapter provides a network
index to quantify the topological robustness of power system networks based on the
development of a graph theoretic approach to characterize the topological structure.
The robustness criterion introduced in this chapter provides useful information to
deal with a range of problems in the context of transmission system expansion.
The backbone of the power system grid is the transmission system whose main
function is maintaining the connection among substations to supply electric energy
with a certain level of security. The interconnection of several substations provides
enough connecting paths to maintain the integrity of the grid. Some particular set
of transmission lines allow sharing resources, such as generation reserves, which
increases the reliability of the power grid. Therefore, the transmission system plays
a major role in the continuous operation of the power grid [1]. The security and reli-
ability of the power systems depends to a large extent on the inter-connectivity level
of the power systems networks [2]. However, the power grids are often not meshed
enough because the investment in the construction of the transmission lines is very
expensive. Thus, the quantification of structural properties can provide meaningful

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 19

R. Moreno Chuquen et al., Graph Theory Applications to Deregulated Power Systems,
SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57589-2_4
20 4 Network Robustness for Power Systems

information needed to assess and enhance the reliability and security of power system
networks.
The modeling and analysis of networks in terms of various topological metrics
has attracted recently considerable attention [3, 4]. The vulnerability of the power
system networks to the nodes and lines failures is an intrinsic structural property that
reveals information about the topological firmness. Quantification of the topological
robustness of a network allows us to understand how the power grid is constructed
[5]. A suitable measure of robustness could be useful in making decisions related to
the reinforcement of the structure. This paper proposes a robustness index based on
the topological properties of the power system networks to quantify the firmness of
the interconnection of the substations through the transmission system.
There exist methods in pure graph theory to quantify the robustness of a network.
These approaches use the link and node connectivity metrics to obtain robustness
measures [6]. The relationship between the minimum degree and the link and node
connectivity is used to define an optimal graph [7, 8]; if the graph contains trees,
then the metric does not provide accurate results. These methods require the com-
putation of polynomial time algorithms to find the node and link connectivity [9].
Every change in the topology requires a new application of the algorithms starting
from the “scratch”. Therefore, the analysis of the topological robustness with graphs
changing their structure requires repeated application of the topology based algo-
rithms, which may result in computational inefficiencies. This paper proposes a direct
quantification of network robustness in a computationally efficient way, developing
a suitable topological characterization of the power system networks based on the
graph theoretic concepts.
Topological information about power systems is usually available from the NTP
(Network Topology Processor). The NTP module continuously retains and updates
electrical system topological information such as node-branch network connectivity,
open-ended lines and transformers. There exist various methods to perform this task.
The pioneering work [10] proposes a method to determine network topology in real-
time. A topology processor that tracks network modification in real-time is proposed
in [11]. This chapter proposes the usage of the topological information to quantify
the network robustness considering changes in the inter-connectivity.
This chapter has three more sections. Then, in Sect. 0, the robustness index is
introduced. In Sect. 4.2, the proposed approach is used to investigate the robustness
of two networks: the 68-bus and the 118-bus IEEE systems. Finally, some concluding
remarks are provided in Sect. 4.3.

4.1 Quantification of the Network Robustness

We focus on the topological aspects of the power systems to quantify its robustness.
Robustness of the power grid is related to the topological firmness of the interconnec-
tion among substations through of the transmission system. The topological firmness
is also related to the relative importance of the buses inside the network because the
4.1 Quantification of the Network Robustness 21

most important nodes play an important role in the connectivity of the whole network.
The power system reliability depends significantly of the network robustness because
if the interconnection level among substations is low then the system integrity can
be impacted by some disturbances. In other words, a strong or robust network means
that there are enough connecting paths that increase the system reliability in various
aspects including the interchange of resources.
The relative importance of each node may be measured using the topological char-
acterization for power system networks developed in Chap. ??. The worth of every
node is determined for the quality of the nodes which it is connected. If a particular
node is connected to various important nodes then this node plays a meaningful role
inside of network in terms of connectivity. If we assume there is a vector w of positive
values wi indicating the importance of the node i then the importance of the node i
is proportional to the sum of the importance measures of the all nodes connected to
it.
1
N
wi = ai j w j (4.1)
λ j=1

Where ai j is an entry (i, j) of the Laplacian matrix L. This entry indicates if the
node pair (i, j) is connected or not. This can be rewritten as,

L=λ (4.2)

There will be many different eigenvalues and eigenvectors by pairs of the matrix
that yields this condition. However, the requirement over of positives entries implies
that the solution of (4.2) is unique by the Perron–Frobenius theorem [12]. The state-
ment of the theorem is as follows:
Perron–Frobenius theorem: if L is a n × n non-negative irreducible matrix, then
there is a largest eigenvalue λ P F such that,
(i) λ P F is positive (ii) there exist an unique eigenvector w > 0 such that Lw =
λ P F w (iii) λ P F for any eigenvalue λ P F

1. is positive
a. Livelihood and survival mobility are oftentimes coutcomes of uneven socioe-
conomic development.
b. Livelihood and survival mobility are oftentimes coutcomes of uneven socioe-
conomic development.
2. Livelihood and survival mobility are oftentimes coutcomes of uneven socioeco-
nomic development.

Thus, this chapter proposes to use directly the eigenvalue as a measure of robust-
ness. This eigenvalue is bounded by the maximum degree that a network can reach
when every node is connected,
λ P F ≤ dmax (4.3)
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 3

N
EXT day we managed to get the news around quick to all the
rest of the gang—but secretly on account of it seemed like our
parents ought not to know what was going on until we
ourselves investigated. Anybody knows that a mystery isn’t a
mystery any longer if someone explains it, and there’s nobody that
can spoil a boy’s mystery any quicker than his very bright parents,
who always know almost everything anyway—one reason our pops
being especially smart being on account of they used to be boys
themselves.

The very second I finished all of my dinner that day—except my

piece of apple pie—I looked past Pop’s overhanging, reddish-brown
eyebrows to where Mom sat at the end of the table. “May I be
excused and eat my pie outdoors?” I asked.

You see, if there is anything I would rather do than anything else

it is to leave the table early before anybody thinks about starting to
do the dishes, and take my three-cornered, one-sixth of an apple
pie, and go out our east screen door with the pie in one hand and
my straw hat in the other, swing out to our grape arbor, step up on a
strong, wooden box, which is always there, reach up and lay the pie
on top of the two-by-four crossbeam at the east end of the arbor
where there isn’t any vine growing. Then I like to climb up and sit on
the top with the cool breeze blowing in my freckled face and with my
two bare feet, with their ten stubby toes, hanging swinging below
me. I hold the nicely-crusted pie upside down and eat it that way,
while I look around the Sugar Creek territory to where different
members of the gang live. I also like to look at our farm and the
barn and the chicken house and the big walnut tree with the long,
rope swing hanging from the first branch, which grows on the south
side, and the plum tree with the robin’s nest in the three-limbed
crotch up near the top. Boy, oh boy, does it make me feel fine and
glad to be alive, especially glad to be a boy!

Even while I was asking to be excused, I was imagining myself to

be already outdoors, sitting up on the flat side of the two-by-four
crossbeam.

But say, Pop was as smart as I was—smart enough to read my

mind—and he saw things in it that I hardly knew were there because
right that second he looked at Mom and said, “There are some good
habits, some bad habits, and some that are in between. The ones in
between don’t hurt a boy very much, but they help to make him
him. That’s getting to be quite a habit with you, Bill.” He finished,
looking at me with his gray-green eyes.

I had been looking at the pie, which I already had in my hand,

expecting Mom to say, “Yes,” like she nearly always does.

“What habit?” I said innocently to Pop.

“Use plain American, Theodore,” Mom said to Pop. “The boy

doesn’t understand philosophy.”

And Pop said to Mom with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “May I
take my pie and go outdoors and eat it upside-down on top of our
grape arbor?”

Mom looked up at him with a sort of quizzical expression on her

face. There was also a twinkle in her eye that seemed funny to Pop,
but not to me. Then she said, “Certainly you can do that while Bill
and I do the dishes.”

Pop said, “Thank you,” and took his one-sixth of a pie in his big,
hard, sun-tanned farmer hand, slipped out of his chair and outdoors
fast, letting the screen slam hard behind him like I sometimes do—
and shouldn’t. Outside he let out a blood-curdling war whoop and I
heard his footsteps running toward the grape arbor.
 A second later I was outdoors too.

Say, if there is anything that looks ridiculous, it is a boy’s long-

legged, red-haired, bushy-eyebrowed father grunting himself into an
upside-down knot and out of it again while he climbs up onto a high
grape arbor.

A jiffy later there was Pop up there where I should have been,
with his heavy work shoes on his large feet swinging, and eating his
pie upside-down and panting for breath from all the unnecessary
exercise. It was fun to Pop, but to me it looked silly so I sat down on
the porch with my back to him and ate my pie right side up and for
some reason it didn’t taste very good.

It was a scorching hot day and I began to feel a little better there
in the shade, when all of a sudden Mom said from inside the house,
using a very cheerful voice, “O. K. Bill. The dishes are all ready for
you.”

I always know when Mom calls me cheerfully like that that she’s
trying to make me want to come.

But say, Pop turned out to be a really swell Pop after all, or else he
was trying to give me a free education. It seemed like he was still
pretending to be me up there on that grape arbor so when he heard
Mom say, “dishes,” he called out cheerfully, “Coming,” and swung
around quick and down off the grape arbor and hurried into the
house like he would rather dry the Collins family dinner dishes than
do anything else in the whole world.

He got stopped at the door by Mom though, who was maybe

trying to play the game with him, and she said, “Wipe that dirt off
your shoes on the mat there”—which she tells me about thirty-seven
times a day—sometimes even while I am already doing it, having
thought of it first myself. Say, I looked at Pop’s feet and they did
have dirt on them—a yellowish-brown dirt on the sides of the soles
and heels!
 At the very second I saw Pop’s shoes with yellowish-brown dirt on
them instead of the very black dirt I knew was the kind that was up
under the pignut trees, I wondered what on earth? I certainly didn’t
want my Pop to be really getting mixed up in our mystery like I had
thought last night for a minute he might be.

Not only that—I didn’t want him to have been the person who had
given the bobwhite and turtledove bird calls last night, which my
discouraged mind was trying to tell me he could have been.

Not knowing I was going to say what I said, I said, “POP!” in a

loud and astonished voice, “Where did you get that kind of mud on
your shoes?” I was using the kind of voice I had heard another
member of our family use on me several different times in my half-
long life.

Pop, who was already wiping off his shoes on the mat at the door,
looked down at them in astonishment and said, “What dirt?”

Mom’s astonished voice shot through the finely woven screen of

the door and landed with a “kerwham” right where her eyes were
looking, which was on both Pop’s big shoes. “Why, Theodore
Collins!” she said, “What on earth?”

Pop grinned back through the screen at her and said, “No, not
what on earth, but earth on what?” which I could tell he thought
was funny, but Mom didn’t think it was very. She went on in her
same astonished, accusing voice, saying, “Those are the very same
muddy shoes you ate dinner with!”

“I never ate dinner with muddy shoes in my life,” Pop said, with a
grin in his voice. “I always use a knife and fork and spoon,” which
was supposed to be extra funny—and was to Pop and me—but for
some reason Mom only smiled rather than laughed and it looked like
she was trying to keep herself from even smiling.
 “Go get your father’s house slippers,” Mom ordered me, and I
obeyed her in a tickled hurry.

Pop slipped his feet out of his shoes and left them on the porch,
and slipped his feet into his slippers and ordered me to follow him
into the house, which I also did with a little less speed, because I
could tell by the tone of his voice that he had some work for me to
do, which I found out was the truth.

It wasn’t too bad though ’cause Pop and I played a little game
while we did the dishes. He called me “Pop” and I called him “Bill.”
He ordered Mom to go into the front room to look after my baby
sister, Charlotte Ann.

Say, Pop and I dived headfirst—or rather, I should say, handsfirst—

into the sudsy dishwater, making short work of those dishes, getting
them done a lot faster than if a mother and daughter had done
them. Also we hurried to be sure to get through before Mom might
come out into the kitchen and look over our work and decide we
were not using the right kind of soap or something.

It really was fun ’cause I kept giving orders to my red-haired,

awkward son, giving him cuckoo commands every few minutes such
as “Keep your mind on your work, Bill!” ... “Hey, that plate has to be
wiped over again!” ... “Your mother likes to have the glasses
polished a little better than that, Son, we never know when there
might be company from somewhere and those glasses have to shine
like everything”—unnecessary things a father nearly always says to a
boy.

Well, those dishes got done in about half the usual time. As quick
as they were finished, I was free to start to do what I really wanted
to do in just the way I wanted to do it, but I got stopped by Pop’s
big, gruff voice. I had just tossed Pop’s drying towel toward the rack
beside the stove, and missed the rack and had made a red-headfirst
dive for it to pick it up quick before Pop, or especially Mom, might
see it. I was still in a bent-over position—just right for a good spank
from somebody—when Pop’s voice socked me and the words were,
“Which one of us is Bill and which is your father now—for the rest of
the afternoon, I mean?”

“I am,” I said. In half a jiffy the towel was on the rack nice and
straight and I was over by the washstand, stooping to get my straw
hat, which was beside Pop’s big still-off work shoes.

“Bring the gang home some time this afternoon,” Pop said. “I want
to show them Addie’s nice, new red-haired family.”

“I will,” I answered, I having seen the six cute little quadrupeds

myself that morning.

By that time I was already outdoors and ten feet from the
slammed screen door, the door having slammed itself on account of
its strong, coiled spring. Then Pop called again and stopped me
stock-still. “If I am your father again, and you are Bill Collins, you
had better stay home and mow the lawn and let me go to meet the
gang,”—but I could tell he didn’t mean it. Pop looked awfully cute, I
thought, with Mom’s big apron on and his blue shirt sleeves rolled up
to the elbows, his slippers still on, standing in the open screen door.

I called to him saying, “I am still Theodore Collins and you are Bill
and you are letting flies in. Shut the door quick—and quietly!”

As I hurried away, my mischievous Pop called after me, “So long,

Mr. Collins! Have a nice time, and don’t forget to find a new beetle
for our collection.”

“So long, Bill!” I yelled from the front gate, which I had just
opened and gone through and shut after me. Then as I dashed past
Theodore Collins on our mailbox I was myself again. I swished
across the dusty road, vaulted over the old, lichen-covered rail fence
and in a jiffy was running in the path that had been made by
barefoot boys’ bare feet, down through the woods as fast as I could
go to the spring where the gang was going to meet first before
going up to the top of Strawberry Hill to the cemetery.
 4

B
OY, oh boy! I never felt better in my life than I did when I was
galloping through that woods to meet the gang. First I was in
the sunlight and then in the shade as I raced along in that
winding, little, brown path—swishing past different kinds of trees,
such as maple and beech and ash and oak and also dodging around
chokecherry shrubs and wild rosebushes with roses scattered all
around among the thorns, also past dogwood trees and all kinds of
wild flowers that grew on either side of the path.

Even though I had had to be delayed unnecessarily on account of

the dishes, I got to the spring about the same time Little Jim and
Poetry did. Circus was already there in the favorite place where he
usually waits for us when he gets there first, which was in the top
branches of a little elm sapling that grows at the top of the steep
bank. As you know, at the bottom of that steep bank was the spring
itself, but we always met in a little, shaded, open space at the top.
Circus was swinging and swaying and looked really like a
chimpanzee, hanging by his hands and feet and everything except
his tail—which he didn’t have anyway.

As quick as Big Jim, with his almost mustache, and Little Tom Till,
with his freckled face and red hair, got there and also Dragonfly, with
his goggle-eyed face and spindling legs, that was all of us.

Poetry, Dragonfly and I told everybody everything that had

happened last night, but I didn’t tell them about Pop having had
yellowish-brown dirt on his shoes; and with my eyes I kept Poetry
and Dragonfly from telling them about the two baby pigs Pop had
buried somewhere, because I felt sure Pop wouldn’t bury two baby
pigs in a cemetery, which had been reserved for human beings only.
 A little later, after a loafing ramble along the bayou and a climb to
the top of Strawberry Hill, we scrambled over the rail fence and in a
couple of jiffies reached the place where the woman had been
digging last night, which was not more than ten feet from Sarah
Paddler’s tall tombstone. Well, we all stopped and stood around in a
barefoot circle looking down into the hole. Sure enough—just as we
had seen it last night—there was the print of a high-heeled, woman’s
shoe and also other high-heeled shoe tracks all around, but none of
the others were as clear as the one we were all studying that very
minute.

“What on earth do you s’pose she was digging here for?” Little
Tom Till asked in his high-pitched voice.

Big Jim answered him saying, “If we knew that, we would know
what we want to know.”

For a minute I focused my eyes on the hand, which somebody had

chiseled on Sarah Paddler’s tombstone. One finger of the hand
pointed toward the sky. I had read the words just below the hand
maybe a hundred and twenty times in my life and they were: “There
is rest in Heaven,”—which I knew there was for anybody who got to
go there. When I was in a cemetery, it was easy to think about
things like that. I was sort of dreamily remembering that our
minister in the Sugar Creek church says that there is only one way
for a boy to get to Heaven. First, the boy has to believe that he is an
honest-to-goodness sinner and needs a Saviour. Then he has to
believe that Jesus, who is the Saviour, came all the way from Heaven
a long time ago to die for him and to save him from his sins; then if
the boy will open the door of his heart and let the Saviour come in,
that will settle it.

Our minister, who knows almost all the Bible by heart, tells the
people that come to our church that there isn’t any other way for
anybody to be saved except just like I told you.
 So I knew that Old Man Paddler, who was saved himself and was
the kindest old, long-whiskered old man that ever was a friend to a
boy, would see his wife, Sarah, again—maybe the very minute he
got to Heaven.

For a fast jiffy, while I was standing by the hole which the June
beetle had tumbled into last night, and was looking up at that carved
hand on the tombstone, my mind sort of drifted away on a friendly
little journey clear up into Heaven—past the great big white cumulus
cloud that was piling itself up in the southwest right that minute
above the tree-covered hills where I knew Old Man Paddler’s cabin
was, and I imagined how that somewhere in Heaven maybe there
was a very nice little cabin waiting for that kind old man, and that
his wife, Sarah, was out there in the garden somewhere looking
after the flowers for him. Every now and then she would stop doing
what she was doing and look toward a little white gate like the one
we have at our house by the big swing near the walnut tree to see if
she could see her husband coming. Then all of a sudden I imagined
she did see him and her kinda oldish face lit up like Mom’s does
sometimes when she sees Pop coming home from somewhere and
she started quick on a half walk and half run out across the yard to
meet him, calling “Hi there! I’ve been waiting for you a long time....”

It was a terribly nice thought to think, I thought. Only I knew that

if that old man ever left Sugar Creek, it would be awful lonesome
around here for a long time, and it sorta seemed like we needed him
here even worse than his wife did up there.

From Sarah Paddler’s grave in the shade of the big pine tree, we
went all the way across the cemetery, winding around a little to get
to the old maple where last night I had shone my flashlight all
around looking for signs of a human quail or a human turtledove.

There we stopped in the friendly shade and lay down in the tall
grass to hold a meeting to help us decide what to do next. While we
were lying there in seven different directions, chewing the juicy ends
of bluegrass and timothy and wild rye, Big Jim gave a special order
which was, “I would like each of us except Poetry and Dragonfly to
give a quail whistle.”

“Why?” Little Tom Till wanted to know.

“I want to find out if any of you were out here last night making
those calls. I also want to know if any of you guys were out here
dressed in overalls and wearing a woman’s high-heeled shoes.”

Little Jim and Little Tom Till and Circus and Big Jim himself did the
best they could making bobwhite calls and Circus was the only one
of us whose whistle sounded like the quail whistle we had heard last
night.

Then Big Jim made all of us except Poetry, Dragonfly and me, do a
turtledove call and again Circus was the only one whose call was like
the one we heard last night.

“O. K., Circus,” Big Jim leveled his eyes across our little tangled up
circle and said to him, “Confess or we will drag you down to Sugar
Creek and throw you in.”

“All right,” Circus said, “I confess I was home in bed, sound asleep
when I heard those calls last night.”

“So was I,” Little Tom Till said.

“So was I,” Little Jim echoed.

“Yeh, and so was I. Sound asleep in bed listening to the calls,” Big
Jim said sarcastically.

Well, that left only Poetry, Dragonfly and me, and we were the
ones who had heard the calls in the first place, so the mystery was
as still unsolved as it had been, not a one of us believing that Circus
was here last night.

There wasn’t any use to stay where we were so, it being a very
hot afternoon, we decided to go to the old swimming hole and get
cooled off.

“Last one in is a bear’s tail,” Circus yelled back at us over one of

his square shoulders as he galloped off first out across the cemetery
to the other side.

The rest of us quick took off after him, not a one of us wanting to
be a bear’s tail, which means we would have to be almost nothing
on account of bears have very stubby tails.

Long before we got there nearly everyone of us had his shirt off—
so that by the time we should get there all we would have to do
would be to wrestle ourselves out of our overalls and in a jiffy we
would be out in the middle of the swellest water to swim in in the
whole world. Everyone of us knew how to swim like a fish, our
parents having made us learn as soon as we were old enough to—
like everybody in the world should.

Say, you should have seen the way our mystery began to come to
life while we were still on the shore before splashing ourselves in.

All of a sudden Little Jim, who was undressing in the shade of a

willow where he always hangs his clothes, yelled to us in a very
excited voice for him, “Hey, Bill! Circus! Poetry! Everybody! Come
here quick! Hurry! Look what I found!”

Well, when Little Jim or any of our gang calls in an excited voice
like that, it always sends a half dozen thrills through me because it
nearly always means something extra special.

Before I knew it, I was galloping across to where he was, my shirt

in one hand and one of my overall legs in the other, getting there as
quick as the rest of us. I also managed to grab up a stick on my way
just in case Little Jim might have spied a water moccasin or some
other kind of snake, of which there are maybe twenty different
varieties around Sugar Creek.

Little Jim was standing there holding his clothes in one hand and
pointing down with an excited right forefinger to something on the
ground on a little strip of sand at the water’s edge.

At first I didn’t see a thing, except some shaded water where

about fifty or more small, black, flat whirligig beetles were racing
round in excited circles on the surface of the water. Right away I
smelled the smell of ripe apples, which is the kind of odor a whirligig
beetle gives off, which anybody who knows anything about whirligig
beetles knows comes from a kind of milky fluid which they use to
protect themselves from being eaten by fish or some kind of water
bird or something else.

Even Poetry didn’t see what Little Jim was excited about.
“Education again,” he said with a disgruntled snort and turned back
to the swimming hole.

Dragonfly, who wasn’t interested in Pop’s and my new hobby,

grunted too and also sneezed, saying, “I’m allergic to the smell of
sweet bugs,”—that being a common name for those lively, little, ripe-
apple-smelling beetles.

“They’re whirligig beetles,” I said, wanting to defend Little Jim for

calling us over in such an excited voice for what the rest of the gang
would think was almost nothing.

“Look, everybody! Look! See, it’s a clue!” Little Jim yelled.

Then my eyes dived in the direction his finger was really pointing
and I saw what he saw. Boy, oh boy! A lively thrill started
whirligigging in my very surprised brain, for what to my wondering
eyes had appeared but, half hidden in the grass, a pair of woman’s
new shoes—very small, expensive looking, white pumps with all-
green, extra-high heels and with a heart-shaped design across the
toes that looked kinda like the leaves from a ground ivy, like the
ones that grew all around Sarah Paddler’s tombstone.

What on earth, I thought and remembered that Pop had said,

“Earth on what?” when I saw there actually were some yellowish-
brown earth stains on those extra-high heels of those newish-
looking, pretty, woman’s shoes.

Just that second Dragonfly said, “Ps-s-st! Listen, everybody!”—

which everybody did, and there it was again as plain as a Sugar
Creek cloudless day, a sharp bobwhite call from down the creek
somewhere, “Bob-white! Bob-white! Poor-Bob-white!”
 5

S
AY, if that bobwhite call was from a real quail, then we didn’t
have anything to worry about, but we knew that honest-to-
goodness quails not only don’t make their very pretty calls in
the middle of the night, but also they don’t do it in the middle of a
sultry, mid-summer, sunny afternoon—or if they do I don’t
remember having heard any do it around Sugar Creek.

If it was a human being calling like a quail, then what?

And if it was a man human being, we would all want to scramble

ourselves out of there and hide somewhere so that whoever he was
wouldn’t see us; but if it was a woman human being, who had made
the quail call—which it might have been, I thought, on account of
the woman’s shoes lying there in the sand beside Little Jim—then
every single one of us ought to make a headfirst dive toward getting
his clothes on.

Before we could start to try to decide what to do, we heard the

quail call again and this time it was a lot nearer than it had been—in
fact it seemed like it wasn’t a hundred feet distant and had come
from the direction of the spring from which we ourselves had just
come. That meant that the person, man or woman, was maybe
walking in the same path we had been running in a little while
before. We wouldn’t have even half enough time to get our clothes
on before running to hide.

I looked all around our tense circle to see if the rest of the gang
had any ideas as to what to do and it seemed like not a one of us
could do a thing except stand stock-still, with his eyes and ears
glued to the direction from which the last quail call had come.
 “Quick, Dragonfly!” I heard myself say, taking charge of things and
shouldn’t have tried to on account of Big Jim is our leader when he
is with us. “Get those shoes, quick, and let’s get out of here!”

But Big Jim took my leadership away from me in a split second by

saying, “Leave those shoes alone! Don’t you dare touch ’em! If
anything has happened, we don’t want our fingerprints on them!”

In less than a fourth of a jiffy we were scrambling up the side of

the slope leaving those shoes about eighteen inches from the
whirligig beetles, and with all our minds whirligigging like everything
—some of us with our clothes half on and others with them half off
and the rest of the gang with them all off—and with my mind a little
off too, maybe—we were getting ourselves fast out of there.

At the top of the little slope we came to the narrow footpath,

zipped across it and disappeared into the tall corn—that being one of
Dragonfly’s pop’s cornfields. I knew that on the opposite side of that
rather narrow strip of cornfield was the bayou, which was divided
into two parts with a longish pond on either end of it, and each of
those ponds had in it some very lazy water in which there were a
few lone-wolf, mud pickerel or barred pickerel, as some people called
them. Between the two ponds there was a narrow strip of soggy,
marshy soil and a little path that was bordered by giant ragweeds.
This was a sort of shortcut to the woods from the old swimming
hole. Once we got to the woods we could follow the rail fence like
we had done last night and come out at the place where Little Jim
had killed the bear, which you have probably read about in one of
the other Sugar Creek Gang stories. As you know, that was at the
bottom of Strawberry Hill; and at the top of the hill is the old
cemetery and the hole in the ground beside Sarah Paddler’s
tombstone.

There we would be safe from whoever was coming up that path,

nearer and nearer every second—that is, if he was dangerous.
 As quick as we were far enough into the tall corn to be hidden
from sight of the path, we dropped down on the ground to listen
and to look to see if we could see what was going on. As you know,
corn blades are not as thick at the bottom of the stalks as they are
at the top so if anybody was coming up the path, we could see his
feet if we were lying on the ground.

Poetry, who was real close to me like he nearly always is,

whispered in my ear, saying, “Hey, sh-h-h! There he is!”

I looked and saw the cuffs of somebody’s trousers standing at the

end of my corn row in the very place where we always left the path
to dive down the incline into our willow-and-shrubbery-protected
outdoor dressing room. Then came a startling quail call again and
this time it seemed so near it almost scared me out of what few wits
I hadn’t already been scared out of.

I waited, wondering if there would be an answer, and then what

to my astonished ears should come but the sound of a turtledove’s
low, sad, lonesome call from the other direction farther up the path.

Almost right away I saw the skirt of a woman’s yellowish dress

coming out of our green dressing room. I also noticed that she was
barefoot. Straining my ears in their direction I could hear her talking
and complaining about something like a boy does when he gets
called by his mother to leave his play—and shouldn’t. I could hear
the man’s voice too, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

A jiffy later I heard her say, “I was having so much fun wading in
the riffles, and—look! I found this—a big Wash Board shell! I’ll bet
I’ll find a pearl in it! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I did find one worth
hundreds of dollars?”

And I heard the man say, “That’s fine, but it’s time for your rest.
Let’s get back to the tent.”
 So! I thought. They were camping somewhere up in Old Man
Paddler’s woods and that meant they would either have to get their
drinking water at the spring where our gang met everyday when our
parents would let us, or they would have to come to our house to
get it out of the iron pitcher-pump at the end of the boardwalk
twenty feet from our back door and not more than fifteen feet from
our grape arbor.

For some reason it didn’t make me feel very good. Of course, Old
Man Paddler owned nearly all the territory around Sugar Creek and
he had a right to let anybody camp on it that wanted to, but it sorta
seemed like the whole territory belonged to the gang, especially the
woods around the spring on account of our bare feet had walked on
nearly every square inch of it. We had climbed nearly every tree and
rested in the shade of every one of them and it was too much like
having company at our house. You don’t feel free to yell and scream
and give loon calls and go screeching through the woods, yelling like
wild Indians or anything, when somebody strange is camping there.
You even have to comb your hair when you are outdoors if there
happens to be a city woman around.

I thought and felt all that while we were still lying on the sandy
soil of Dragonfly’s pop’s cornfield and the man and the woman were
still not more than a few rods up the path on their way towards the
spring.

They were out of hearing distance now, but I could see the
movement the tall weeds were making as they swayed back into
place after the man and woman had gone through, and the
movement was like it is when the wind blows across our wheat field.

A jiffy later they were gone and I could hear only the sound of the
breathing of seven half-dressed, half-undressed boys.

“What on earth?” I said using my nervous voice before any of the

rest of the gang did.
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