Power System Stability
Power System Stability
“Power system stability is the ability of an electric power system, for a given initial operating
condition, to regain a state of operating equilibrium after being subjected to a physical
disturbance, with most of the system variables bounded so that practically the entire system
remains intact” [1], [2]. The disturbances mentioned in the definition could be faults, load
changes, generator outages, line outages, voltage collapse or some combination of these. Power
system stability can be broadly classified into rotor angle, voltage and frequency stability. Each
of these three stabilities can be further classified into large disturbance or small disturbance,
short term or long term. The classification is depicted in Fig. 1.1 [2].
“It is the ability of the system to remain in synchronism when subjected to a disturbance”.
The rotor angle of a generator depends on the balance between the electromagnetic torque due to
the generator electrical power output and mechanical torque due to the input mechanical power
through a prime mover. Remaining in synchronism means that all the generators electromagnetic
1.1
torque is exactly equal to the mechanical torque in the opposite direction. If in a generator the
balance between electromagnetic and mechanical torque is disturbed, due to disturbances in the
system, then this will lead to oscillations in the rotor angle. Rotor angle stability is further
classified into small disturbance angle stability and large disturbance angle stability.
“It is the ability of the system to remain in synchronism when subjected to small
disturbances”. If a disturbance is small enough so that the nonlinear power system can be
approximated by a linear system, then the study of rotor angle stability of that particular system
is called as small-disturbance angle stability analysis. Small disturbances can be small load
changes like switching on or off of small loads, line tripping, small generators tripping etc. Due
to small disturbances there can be two types of instability: non-oscillatory instability and
oscillatory instability. In non-oscillatory instability the rotor angle of a generator keeps on
increasing due to a small disturbance and in case of oscillatory instability the rotor angle
oscillates with increasing magnitude.
1.2
1.1.3 Large-disturbance or transient angle stability
“It is the ability of the system to remain in synchronism when subjected to large
disturbances”. Large disturbances can be faults, switching on or off of large loads, large
generators tripping etc. When a power system is subjected to large disturbance, it will lead to
large excursions of generator rotor angles. Since there are large rotor angle changes the power
system cannot be approximated by a linear representation like in the case of small-disturbance
stability. The time domain of interest in case of large-disturbance as well as small-disturbance
angle stability is any where between 0.1- 10 s. Due to this reason small and large-disturbance
angle stability are considered to be short term phenomenon. It has to be noted here that though
in some literature “dynamic stability” is used in place of transient stability, according to IEEE
task force committee report [2], only transient stability has to be used.
“It is the ability of the system to maintain steady state voltages at all the system buses
when subjected to a disturbance. If the disturbance is large then it is called as large-disturbance
voltage stability and if the disturbance is small it is called as small-disturbance voltage
stability”. Unlike angle stability, voltage stability can also be a long term phenomenon. In case
voltage fluctuations occur due to fast acting devices like induction motors, power electronic
drive, HVDC etc then the time frame for understanding the stability is in the range of 10-20 s
and hence can be treated as short term phenomenon. On the other hand if voltage variations are
due to slow change in load, over loading of lines, generators hitting reactive power limits, tap
changing transformers etc then time frame for voltage stability can stretch from 1 minute to
several minutes.
The main difference between voltage stability and angle stability is that voltage stability
depends on the balance of reactive power demand and generation in the system where as the
angle stability mainly depends on the balance between real power generation and demand.
1.3