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A Study on Static Voltage Collapse Proximity Indicators

Conference Paper · January 2009

DOI: 10.1109/PECON.2008.4762533 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia
A Study on Static Voltage Collapse Proximity
Indicators
Renuga Verayiah* and Izham Zainal Abidin**
* Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Selangor, Malaysia. Email: renuga@uniten.edu.my
** Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Selangor, Malaysia. Email: izham@uniten.edu.my
Abstract— In the time of rapid growth, there is an increase
of demand for a reliable and stable power supply. Due to
this, utility companies are forced to operate their power
system nearer to its maximum capabilities since system
expansion may be a costly option. As a result, the power
system will be at risk to voltage collapse. Voltage collapse
phenomenon is known to be complex and localised in nature
but with a widespread effect. The ultimate effect of voltage
collapse would be total system collapse which would incur
high losses to utility companies. Thus, on- line monitoring of
power system stability has become a vital factor for electric
utility companies.
This paper looks into combining a power flow program in
MATLAB environment with two line stability indices, which
are Fast Voltage Stability Index (FVSI) and Line Stability
Index, LQP for automatic contingency ranking. The IEEE
14 Bus Test System is used as a standard test system. This
approach investigates each line of the system through
calculating an indicator that varies from zero (no load
condition) to unity (maximum permissible loading
condition). The basic concept of maximum power transfer
through a line is utilized. Correlation study on the results
obtained from contingency ranking and voltage stability
analysis were conducted and it is found that line outages at
the weak lines would cause voltage instability condition to a
system. Subsequently, using the result from the contingency
ranking, weak areas in the system can be identified.
Verification of this technique with other existing technique
shows a strong agreement between them.
Keywords – Voltage Stability; Fast Voltage Stability Index
(FVSI); Line Stability Index, LQP
I. INTRODUCTION
Voltage stability problems have received increased
attention over the last few years. Many published papers
have demonstrated the importance of the problem and
several occurrences all around the world have shown that
the problem may have serious consequences [1, 2, 3],
such as excessive voltage drop or dynamic instability.
Since power systems are operated under increasingly
stressed condition, the ability to maintain voltage stability
has become a growing concern, and good measures to
improve the reactive power and voltage level control are
required. If effective control actions are not appropriately
implemented, successive load increases may drive a
system to an unstable state, at which abnormal operating
conditions can be identified. The following formal
1-4244-2405-4/08/$20.00 ©2008 IEEE
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definitions of terms related to voltage collapse are given
in reference [4]:
i. Voltage Stability is the ability of a power system
to maintain voltage so that when load
admittance is increased, load power will
increase, thus both power and voltage are
controllable.
ii. Voltage Collapse is the process by which
voltage instability leads to loss of voltage in a
significant part of a power system.
iii. Voltage Security is the ability of a power
system, not only to operate stable but also to
remain stable following any reasonably
contingency or adverse system change.
A system becomes unstable when a disturbance (load
increase or other system change) causes voltage to drop
quickly or drift downward, and operators and automatic
system controls fail to improve the voltage level. The
voltage decay may take from a few seconds to several
minutes.
Based on the basic understanding of voltage collapse
and voltage stability analysis, a new approach and tool of
analyzing line stability indices is proposed utilizing the
power flow solution in Matlab programming. Relatively
different in terms of approach compared to conventional
techniques, the proposed line stability study capable of
analyzing each bus and interconnected lines besides
generating the stability indices and thus provide the
contingency ranking. It utilizes standard power flow
solutions whereby a user input is required in order to
analyze the active and reactive power variations.
Then, classification from most vulnerable to least
vulnerable lines is done. Two indexes are generated for
comparison purpose and for the purpose of proving of
result. Since voltage collapse is known to start from a
localized event or a collection of localized events, hence
the proposed line stability technique may be beneficial in
identifying the location of these events in order to prevent
voltage collapse from occurring. Adapting and improving
this technique shows a promising result as an alternative
approach with possible future improvements for creating
a more general and effective tool for voltage collapse
analysis.
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 2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

II. METHODOLOGY III. AUTOMATIC CONTINGENCY RANKING PROGRAM

The two types of line stability indices that are used for DEVELOPMENT
the analysis are Line Stability Index, FVSI and Line The pseudo code that is written to develop the
Stability Index, LQP. automatic contingency analysis and ranking is as follows:
A. Fast Voltage Stability Index (FVSI)
//clear
//define base loading
Line stability index, FVSI [5] is given as follows:
do
4 Z 2Q r (1) //extract input for contingency from user
FVSI =
Vs2 X //run power flow analysis for 14 Bus
where Z is the line impedance, X is the line reactance, Qr //if load flow diverges and FVSI values > 1.0
is the reactive power flow at the receiving end and Vs is FVSI = 1.000
the sending end voltage. The line that gives index value //if load flow diverges and LQP values > 1.0
closest to 1 will be the most critical line of the bus and LQP = 1.000
may lead to system wide instability scenario. This index //sort indices in descending order for all the lines
can also be used to determine the weakest bus on the for FVSI
system. The determination of the weakest bus is based on //sort indices in descending order for all the lines
the maximum load allowed on a load bus. The most for LQP
vulnerable bus in the system corresponds to the bus with //form array
the smallest maximum permissible load. end
//display results
end
B. Line Stability Index (LQP)

From the pseudo code, the power flow program coding is

Line Stability Index, LQP [6] is given as follows:
developed. The flow chart to execute the line flow and
§ X · § X · (2) (2)
LQ P = 4 ¨ 2 ¸ ¨ 2
Ps 2 + Q r ¸ sorting for the indices is shown in Figure 2.
© Vs ¹ © Vs ¹
where X is the line reactance, Qr is the reactive power
flow at the receiving bus, Vs is the voltage on sending bus
and Ps is the active power flow at the sending bus. Start
Operating at secure and stable conditions requires the
value of LQP index to be maintained less than 1.
index = 1

C. Data for Test System – IEEE 14 Bus Test System

Display the Header
The IEEE 14 Bus Test System shown is a standard model for line flow data
published by IEEE. Utilizing this model enable
researchers world wide to directly compare the results
with other research efforts. Figure 1 show the IEEE 14 Calculate in loop of 40 for
Bus circuit diagram. active and reactive power
entering the line terminals and
line losses, net power, total real
power and reactive losses.

Extract and match

accordingly in loop
the relevant data for
the FVSI and LQP

Save the matched data in

tabulated form under matrix.
mat and return to BASE14.m

End

Figure 2. Flow Chart for Line Flow Program

Figure 1. IEEE 14 Bus Test System Circuit Diagram
[7]

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 2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia
Generally, the post- outage contingency analysis can be
conducted on- line or off- line, but off- line study is
preferable due to security purposes. The contingency
analysis is conducted at the operating loading condition in
order to avoid misranking of contingencies for the system
that operated close to maximum loadability for particular
load due to several lines evaluated at unity FVSI and LQP
values.
The analysis on the developed contingency program for
the two indices is carried out based on few criteria as
listed below:
i. Single Load Change
ii. Multiple Load Change
iii. Transmission Line Outage
IV. TEST RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The test results for all the above testing criteria are
presented in this section.
A. Single Load Change
The loading pattern is chosen so that each time the load
is changed in only one particular node, keeping the load
at other nodes fixed at base case. Several combinations of
real, reactive and real, and reactive load pattern are
selected to accomplish this and they are listed below:
i) Single load change with real load only
ii) Single load change with reactive load only
iii) Single load change with real and reactive load
Single Load Change with Real Load Only
The test for single load change by varying the real load
only is carried out at bus 4. The real load is slowly varied
to the level of voltage collapse. Based from the result
obtain, FVSI versus Real Power Loading is plotted as in
Figure 3. Bus 5 is directly connected to bus 4 and bus 1.
The addition of real load at bus 4 makes the line
connecting from bus 1 to bus 5 critical and hence near to
collapse. Besides that, bus 2 which is connected to bus 5
and bus 1 also appears to be the critical line, followed by
line connecting from bus 4 to bus 3 and bus 6 to bus 5.
FVSI Versus Real Power, P
1.2000
1.0000
0.8000
FVSI
0.6000
0.4000
0.2000
0.0000
0.048 0.080 0.170 0.250 0.360 0.450 0.520 0.550
Real Power, P (p.u)
Figure 3. FVSI versus Real Power Loading at Bus 4
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Bus 3 is directly connected to bus 4 while bus 6 is
connected through bus 5. Adding real load to bus 4 made
bus 5 and lines connecting to the bus to be stressful. The
extra power that flows through the neighboring lines has
caused to this stressful situation.
For the same loading, the network is examined with
line stability index, LQP and the plot is shown in Figure
4. In the LQP plot, bus 4 connecting to bus 3 is more
sensitive and approaching voltage collapse faster as
compared to other buses. Comparison made from the
graphs plotted for the two stability detection indices
indicates that the methods yield an almost consistent
result in indicating voltage collapse. The remarkable
characteristics of the technique and the indicator is that
along with indicating the stability of the overall system,
the index value itself is able locate the origin of voltage
collapse. This can be obtained from the highest index
value of a line. Besides that, this technique is also capable
to indicate the weak operating areas. This can be
evaluated from the neighboring lines that carry higher
index value.
Single Load Change with Reactive Load Only
The test was also conducted by varying only the
reactive power at a single load. The reactive loading of
bus 7 is increased until near to voltage collapse and from
the results of the contingency ranking, FVSI and LQP
versus Reactive Power Loading are plotted as shown in
Figure 5 and Figure 6. From the result, the technique of
contingency ranking has shown a satisfactory
performance. The heavy reactive load at bus 7 made line
connecting from bus 4 to bus 7 and bus 7 to bus 8 to be
the most critical. This is because both the lines are
directly connected to bus 7. The other line which is from
bus 4 to bus 9 also became critical. The neighboring lines
from bus 14 to bus 13 and from bus 10 to bus 11 are the
next critical lines and close to voltage collapse.
Comparing the test for varying the reactive load only
with the previous test shows changing reactive power has
such a high degree of sensitivity near the voltage collapse
point that a small addition of load makes it very near or
equal to 1.
LQP Versus Real Power, P
1.2000
1.0000
0.8000 LQP Bus 1 to 5
FVSI Bus 1 to 5
LQP Bus 2 to 4
LQP
FVSI Bus 2 to 4 0.6000
LQP Bus 4 to 3
FVSI Bus 4 to 3 0.4000 LQP Bus 6 to 5
FVSI Bus 6 to 5
0.2000
0.0000
0.048 0.080 0.170 0.250 0.360 0.450 0.520 0.550
Real Power, P (p.u)
Figure 4. LQP versus Real Power Loading at Bus 4
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 2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

FVSI Versus Reactive Power, Q FVSI Versus Real and Reactive Power

1.2000 1.2000

1.0000 1.0000
FVSI Bus 4 to 7 FVSI Bus 4 to 9
0.8000
0.8000 FVSI Bus 4 to 9
FVSI Bus 11 to 6

FVSI
FVSI

FVSI Bus 7 to 8 0.6000

0.6000 FVSI Bus 7 to 8
FVSI Bus 14 to 13
0.4000
0.4000
FVSI Bus 11 to 10
FVSI Bus 10 to 11
0.2000
0.2000
0.0000
0.0000 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0.0000 0.0500 0.1000 0.1500 0.2000 0.2500 0.3000 Loading Factor, P and Q
Reactive Power, Q (p.u)

Figure 7. FVSI versus Real and Reactive Power

Figure 5. FVSI versus Reactive Power Loading at Bus 7 Loading at Bus 10

LQP Versus Real and Reactive Power

LQP Versus Reactive Power, Q

1.2000
1.2000
1.0000
1.0000
LQP Bus 4 to 9
LQP Bus 4 to 7
0.8000
0.8000
LQP Bus 11 to 6

LQP
LQP Bus 4 to 9
0.6000
LQP

0.6000 LQP Bus 7 to 8

LQP Bus 14 to 13 0.4000 LQP Bus 7 to 8
0.4000
LQP Bus 10 to 11
0.2000 LQP Bus 11 to 10
0.2000

0.0000
0.0000
0.0000 0.0500 0.1000 0.1500 0.2000 0.2500 0.3000 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Reactive Power, Q (p.u) Loading Factor, P and Q

Figure 8. LQP versus Real and Reactive Power

Figure 6. LQP versus Reactive Power Loading at Bus 7 Loading at Bus 10

It can be concluded that a much more severe voltage B. Multiple Load Change
drop occurs when reactive power are transferred, as
compared to the drop that occurs when real power are
A practical power system network actually possesses
transferred. The greater voltage drop is caused by the fact
hundreds of nodes and thousands of lines connected to
that the current is more lagging. As current becomes less
them. For any particular instance, the load in some buses
lagging, the voltage drops becomes less severe. A
may undergo addition or reduction. Depending on the
commonly quoted rule of thumb is that, it takes 10 MW
factors concerned, and increasing of decreasing tendency
of active power flow to produce the same voltage drop as
of overall loading might also be observed. For the
only 1 MVAR of reactive power.
simulation of multiple load change, bus 11, 12 and 14
were randomly selected. The real and reactive power for
Single Load Change with Real and Reactive Load
the selected buses was increased until just before the
power flow solution diverges. Figure 9 and Figure 10
In a practical case, real and reactive load changes take
illustrates the heavily loaded case for this multiple load
place simultaneously and keeping that in mind, both the
change.
real and reactive loads are changed in the following test.
Both the real and reactive power is raised gradually at bus
FVSI Versus Load Change at Multiple Node
10 to a level very close to instability. Gradual addition of
load slowly makes a few lines critical. From the 1.2000

contingency ranking results, the plot of single load 1.0000 FVSI Bus 12 to 6

change with real and reactive power for both the indices 0.8000
FVSI Bus 13 to 14
FVSI

is shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8. 0.6000

FVSI Bus 11 to 6
For a load of real power equals to 50 MW and reactive 0.4000
FVSI Bus 5 to 6
power equals to 115 MVAR at bus 10, it is found that 0.2000

line connecting from bus 4 to bus 9 is the most critical 0.0000

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
line. The other connected lines also show a high Loading Factor
instability value. This shows that lines connecting from
bus 4, 9, 11 and 7 are the vulnerable segments for this
Figure 9. FVSI versus Multiple Loading
loading combination. Figure 7 and Figure 8 confirms the
critical buses and lines connected in the network.

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 2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

TABLE II.
LQP Versus Load Change at Multiple Node
OUTAGE AT BUS 4
1.2000
From To
Number Bus Bus FVSI
1.0000 LQP Bus 12 to 6
0.8000
2 1 5 1
LQP Bus 13 to 14
5 2 4 1
LQP

0.6000
LQP Bus 11 to 6
0.4000 6 2 5 1
LQP Bus 5 to 6
0.2000
8 3 4 1
0.0000
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 11 4 5 1
Loading Factor
12 4 7 1
13 4 9 1
Figure 10. LQP versus Multiple Loading 17 5 6 1
23 7 8 1
C. Transmission Line Outage 38 13 14 0.3636
31 10 11 0.3406
Analysis was carried out to evaluate the critical lines 19 6 11 0.3094
when an outage occurs at all the load busses, one at a 29 9 14 0.3087
time. The outage created at all the load busses is 21 6 13 0.1383
summarized in Table I. The contingency ranking of the 28 9 10 0.1274
lines are evaluated only for FVSI stability index. Sample
4 2 3 0.094
of contingency ranking results for outage at bus 4, bus 9
and bus 14 is shown in Table II to Table IV. 24 7 9 0.0819
From the results above, the FVSI value equal to unity 20 6 12 0.0758
implies that these lines are the critical lines that could 35 12 13 0.0414
cause the entire system instability. The FVSI values 1 1 2 0.039
evaluated at all 20 interconnected lines shows high
severity at buses that are connected directly to where the
outage occurs. The neighboring lines also indicate high TABLE III.
FVSI values. For example, outage at bus 14 causes line OUTAGE AT BUS 9
connecting from bus 14 to bus 9 and bus 13 to already From
Number Bus To Bus FVSI
reach the collapse point. The two buses are directly
connected to bus 14. The neighboring lines are the one 13 4 9 1
that connects from bus 4 to bus 9, bus 6 to bus 13, bus 1 23 7 8 1
to bus 5 and bus 7 to bus 8. These lines also show high 24 7 9 1
FVSI values. The same applies for the contingency 12 4 7 0.7898
ranking at other bus outages. In contrast to high FVSI
38 13 14 0.7813
values, line connecting from bus 2 to bus 3 appears to be
31 10 11 0.7604
the least vulnerable line for all the cases above. One of
the reasons could be because they are connected away 19 6 11 0.6662
from the affected busses and lines. 2 1 5 0.5967
To conclude on the analysis, it is proven that the 29 9 14 0.5642
technique of automatic contingency ranking shows a 8 3 4 0.5148
promising result for assessment of critical buses and lines
5 2 4 0.4538
in a transmission network.
6 2 5 0.3469
TABLE I. 21 6 13 0.2791
LOADING TO CAUSE OUTAGE AT LOAD BUSES 28 9 10 0.268
Bus Outage P (MW) Q(MVAR) 17 5 6 0.2297
4 320 340 35 12 13 0.1452
5 350 320 20 6 12 0.1293
7 190 160 11 4 5 0.0906
9 155 110 1 1 2 0.0881
10 130 70 4 2 3 0.0304
11 120 90
12 100 70
13 160 125
14 70 50

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 2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

TABLE IV. VI. REFERENCES

OUTAGE AT BUS 14
From [1] G. Bronwell and H. Clark, “Analysis and Solution
Number Bus To Bus FVSI for Bulk System Voltage Instability,” IEEE
29 9 14 1 Computer Applications in Power Systems, July
38 13 14 1 1989, pp. 31- 35.
13 4 9 0.683 [2] IEEE Work Group on Voltage Stability, System
Dynamic Sub- committee, “Voltage Stability of
21 6 13 0.4089
Power Systems,” Technical Report 90TH0358-2-
2 1 5 0.3627
PWR, IEEE, 1990.
23 7 8 0.3592 [3] R.B. Prada, B. J. Cory, and R. Navarro Perez, “
17 5 6 0.356 Assessment of Steady State Voltage Collapse,”
24 7 9 0.3214 Proc. of the Tenth Power Systems Computation
12 4 7 0.2742 Conference, Graz, Austria, August 1990, pp. 1189-
19 6 11 0.2684 1195.
31 10 11 0.2625 [4] CIGRE WG 38.02 Task Force No 10, “Modeling of
Voltage Collapse including Dynamic Phenomena,”
35 12 13 0.2289
Technical Report of Task Force 38-02-10, CIGRE,
8 3 4 0.2063 June 1992.
5 2 4 0.2018 [5] I. Musirin, T.K.A Rahman, “Novel Fast Voltage
20 6 12 0.1866 Stability Index (FVSI) for Voltage Stability
6 2 5 0.1711 Analysis in Power Transmission System,” 2002
28 9 10 0.0803 Student Conference on Research and
1 1 2 0.076 Development Proceedings, Shah Alam, Malaysia,
July 2002.
4 2 3 0.0746
[6] A. Mohamed, G.B. Jasmon, S. Yusoff, “A Static
11 4 5 0.0145 Voltage Collapse Indicator using Line Stability
Factors,” Journal of Industrial Technology,
Vol. 7, N1, pp. 73-85, 1989
V. CONCLUSIONS [7] Power Systems Test Case Archive, 14 Bus Power
Online monitoring of the system status is vital for Flow Test Case. Internet Page. 2007.
smooth and reliable operation as well as uninterrupted https://www.ee.washington.edu/research/pstca/pf14/
dispatching of load. All the analysis above demonstrated pg_tca14bus.htm
the system status prior to voltage collapse. It can be
utilized as an alarm indicating tool to prevent voltage
collapse and cascading blackouts. The study examined
the line stability, whereby it detected the stressed
condition of the lines and identify the weak areas prone to
voltage collapse. For any state of loading each line will
have a stability index and based on that value of stability
index, an idea about the stressful situation of that line
could be achieved.
The voltage collapse prediction method using line
stability indices of FVSI and LQP for automatic
contingency ranking has shown some advantages. The
technique is simple to use and requires less computational
effort. Human error can also be eliminated. Apart from its
speed and accuracy, the method is flexible enough for
simulating any type of topological and load modifications
in the network as long as the system remains stable. The
implementation of automatic contingency ranking and
analysis in a real system would ease the work of
operation and planning operators.

536

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