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Abstract

A new graph dual formalism is presented for the analysis of line outages in electricity networks. The dual formalism is based on a consideration of the flows around closed cycles in the network. After some exposition of the theory is presented, a new formula for the computation of line outage distribution factors is derived, which is not only computationally faster than existing methods, but also generalizes easily for multiple line outages and arbitrary changes to line series reactance. In addition, the dual formalism provides new physical insight for how the effects of line outages propagate through the network. For example, in a planar network a single-line outage can be shown to induce monotonically decreasing flow changes, which are mathematically equivalent to an electrostatic dipole field.