Path search is the basis of fault restoration for the power grid that plays an important role in ensuring the effectiveness and practicability of the recovery system to search the effective paths quickly and completely. Aiming for rapidly searching multiple paths

a search strategy based on vertex splitting is proposed. The power grid is equivalent to a subsystem-switch model based on the topological relation. By making use of the graph theory

the equivalent model is mapped to a vertex-side model. On the above basis

construct the connection matrix and calculate the degree of the vertices

combined with the connectivity of the vertexes. According to the different degrees

adopt the vertex deleting

eliminating

splitting strategy; in consideration of the complex network

setting the path constraints and deleting the long paths to realize the recovery way search. Based on the number of outaged load vertices

take different methods to solve the recovery scheme.The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated by an actual calculation. Compared with breadth first search and genetic algorithm (GA)

the results show that the proposed algorithm able to solve several paths and improve the calculation efficiency is suitable for different complicated networks and feasible in online restoration of system real-time operation.