  The transient response of power grids to external disturbances influences
their stable operation. This paper studies the effect of topology in linear
time-invariant dynamics of different power grids. For a variety of objective
functions, a unified framework based on $H_2$ norm is presented to analyze the
robustness to ambient fluctuations. Such objectives include loss reduction,
weighted consensus of phase angle deviations, oscillations in nodal frequency,
and other graphical metrics. The framework is then used to study the problem of
optimal topology design for robust control goals of different grids. For radial
grids, the problem is shown as equivalent to the hard "optimum communication
spanning tree" problem in graph theory and a combinatorial topology
construction is presented with bounded approximation gap. Extended to loopy
(meshed) grids, a greedy topology design algorithm is discussed. The
performance of the topology design algorithms under multiple control objectives
are presented on both loopy and radial test grids. Overall, this paper analyzes
topology design algorithms on a broad class of control problems in power grid
by exploring their combinatorial and graphical properties.
