At present

China has finally entered a fast developing period characterized by trans-regional mutual supply

ultra high voltage (UHV)

extra high voltage (EHV) and AC-DC hybrid transmission. However

this has led to the staggering rate of power electric system complexity that increases the risk of cascading outage and blackout. A power system cascading outage simulation algorithm is proposed based on genetic algorithms. In searching for the paths with great risk of cascading outage

the algorithm takes the real-time operation environment into consideration while simulating the process of biological evolution based on natural selection. Finally probable cascading outage paths caused by different initial states are found. A case study shows that this algorithm is able to quickly simulate cascading outage

locate critical points of the system and issue alarm of outage

while providing further support to dispatchers in stopping cascading outage in its initial state. This work is supported by State Grid Corporation of China

Major Projects on Planning and Operation Control of Large Scale Grid (No. SGCC-MPLG001-2012) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51177078).