Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference (AUPEC 2004) 26-29 September 2004, Brisbane, Australia

ON-LINE VOLTAGE COLLAPSE PREDICTION CONSIDERING COMPOSITE LOAD AND ON-LOAD TAP CHANGER M. Bahadornejad and G. Ledwich School of Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Australia Abstract The attempt of On Load Tap Changer to restore the load voltage to its setpoint value has been known as the main cause of the long-term voltage instability and its calamitous result as voltage collapse in heavily loaded power systems. In this paper it is shown that the local load bus voltage and current can be used to anticipate a possible voltage collapse and to estimate the taps to such a collapse in a system consisting of constant impedance, induction motor, and constant power loads behind a tap changer. The proposed method is confirmed by simulation. 1. INTRODUCTION reverse control action . In [3] Hong and Wang have presented an approach for estimating voltage stability region concluding the stability region of OLTCs. The time to identify the instability is a critical aspect. Many emergency control measures are based on extensive off-line studies. This paper is a part of a research work for on-line estimation of the time to a possible voltage collapse. The feasibility of the supply system Thevenin impedance estimation and load parameters identification using the changes in the load measured voltage and current are pointed out in [6] and [7], respectively. It was shown in [6] that the ratio of the cross-correlations of the changes in the load voltage and current with respect to the changes in the load admittance can be used to estimate the system Thevenin impedance. Based on the measured load bus voltage and current phasors during a disturbance in the power system a method was introduced in [7] to identify online the load parameters. In that work the change in the load active power due to the disturbance was used to identify the active power of the load different components in a peeling process. Then the induction motor reactive power was estimated using the random changes in the load measured power. The other components of the load reactive power were also estimated using the disturbance data. The estimated powers can be used to obtain the load parameters. The anticipation of voltage collapse for a system consisting of a constant impedance load behind a tap changer was worked out in [8]. In this paper it is shown that the local load bus measured voltage and current phasors can be used to identify a possible voltage

Load power restoration in constant demand loads, such as TVs and computers, induction motors, on-load tap changer (OLTC) controlled loads and constant energy heating loads is the main cause of voltage collapse [1]. In references [2, 3, 4] reverse control action of LTC in association with voltage collapse is investigated. It is shown theoretically that behind a critical condition of tap position, the secondary voltage drops if the tap position is raised aiming at raising the secondary voltage. The above critical condition for occurrence of reverse action coincides with the power matching condition under which the power consumed by load is maximized. After this point the process of load restoration becomes unstable, as successive tap changes decrease distribution voltage further and further away from its setpoint [5]. This fact suggests that the reverse action of tap changer is closely related to the voltage collapse. Hence, tap locking action could be one of the countermeasures to avoid voltage collapse. There are, however, exceptions such as a feeder serving almost exclusively heavily loaded induction motors [5]. The reactive consumption of induction motor is dependent on supply voltage, and demonstrates a negative slope of reactive power to voltage in heavily loaded, compensated cases. In such a case increase of distribution side voltage will decrease reactive consumption and thus will result in increasing the transmission side voltage as well. Yorino and Galina in [4] have investigated the sensitivity of load voltage to tap position with both load exact characteristics and constant power load and have concluded that it can be used to assess the occurrence of

collapse resulting from a long-term voltage instability in a system consisting constant impedance, induction motor, and constant power loads behind a tap changer, and also, to estimate the taps to the collapse. It is assumed that the system and load post-disturbance parameters are identified. The proposed method is confirmed by simulation. 2. THEORY

hence activates motor dynamics causing changes in the motor slip until motor active power is recovered at a new steady state condition (Figure 2).

A simple power system is shown in Figure 1, where a combination of the induction motor load, constant impedance load, and constant power load is supplied through an OLTC. The supply system is shown by its equivalent Thevenin circuit. The induction motor load is modeled as a constant demand load where following any changes in the load bus voltage the motor slip s is changed and hence the variable resistance R is adjusted to a new value. X is the sum of the stator and rotor reactances and the rotor resistance is shown by Rr . For simplicity the stator resistance and the magnetizing circuit are ignored.
V1

Figure 2. (a): tap position, primary and secondary voltages, (b): induction motor slip, (c): load active powers, (d): load reactive powers

Z th

V2
I

n :1 V 3

P + jQ1 1

P + jQ

P2 + jQ2

P3 + jQ3

RL XL
R=
Rr s

Z3 =

V3

P3 jQ 3

The taping process continues until the voltage at bus 3 is maximized. At this point, while the active powers of the induction motor and constant power loads are recovered, the active power of the constant impedance load, and hence, the load total active power, are also maximized (Figure 3). After this point the OLTC reverse action starts and the process of the load voltage restoration becomes unstable. Tap changes will stop in two cases: V3 reaches its set point value, and/or, Tap reaches its limit.

Figure 1. Simple power system with composite load and on load tap changer

The Tap ratio is shown by n. At a certain time a major disturbance causes a significant sudden increase in the supply system impedance. This change in the system impedance, in turn, causes significant sudden drops in the load primary and secondary voltages and load consumption (Figure 2). It is assumed that following any changes in the load voltage the constant power load impedance is immediately adjusted according to equation (1). (1) P3 jQ3 The motor slip, s , increases, resulting reduction in R, until P1 matches its predisturbance value (motor demand) (Figure 2). OLTC attempts to restore the load side voltage to its setpoint value by decreasing the tap ratio. Each tap change causes a sudden change in the load voltage and
Z3 = V3
2

Figure 3. Changes in the transformer secondary voltage and load power due to taping

2.1

Tap initial ratio estimation

Following any sudden change in the load voltage the induction motor acts primarily as a constant impedance load, and therefore, right after each taping the impedances of the induction motor and constant

impedance components of load remain constant but the impedance of the constant power load is adjusted in real time according to equation (1). Assuming that the active and reactive powers of the constant power load are identified, equation (2) can be used to estimate the preand post-taping admittances of this component from the bus 2 view point: P jQ3 Y3P = 3 (2) 2 V2 It can be shown that the tap initial ratio no can be estimated using equation (3):
n o n = n o
2

2.2

Taps to collapse estimation

Once the tap initial ratio is estimated, the following method can be used to estimate the time to collapse. Let Y1 ,Y2 ,Y3 , and Yth to be defined in Figure 1 as the induction motor load, constant impedance load, constant power load, and the supply system Thevenin admittances, respectively, where: P X P1 (6) Y1 = 1 j 2 R V 2 V
3 3

Y2 = G 2 jB 2 =

YTP Y3P YTP Y3P

1 X L + jR L
2

(7) (8) (9)

t = T1 t = T1

(3)
+

Y3 =
Yth =

P3 V3
2

Q3 V3

Where, YTP = I V 2 is the total load admittance from the bus 2 view point and T1 is the time instant of the first taping. The size of each tap step n is assumed to be known, otherwise, using equation (3) for two successive taping, no and n can both be determined. The tap changing logic is as following:
ni +1 n + n if V >V o + d and n < n 3 3 i max i = ni n if V3 <V3o d and ni > n min n otherwise i

1 = Gth jBth Z th

It can easily be shown in Figure 1 that: (10) G2 + B2 Where n is the tap ratio and the other terms are as below: I th = I + YthV 2 (11) P + P3 G = G 2 + Gth + 1 (12) 2 V3
V3
2

n 2 I th

(4)

Where d and V3o are half of the OLTC dead band and load voltage reference value, respectively. The voltage regulating relay can operate with inverse or constant time lag characteristics. In this paper the tap operating mode is considered to be in sequence. This mode of operation consists of a sequence of tap changes starting after an initial fixed or constant time delay and continuing at constant time intervals. The first tap time delay, if not constant, can be determined by the following formula:
TOLTC = Td d + T f + Tm V

B = B 2 + Bth +

Q X P1 + 3 R V 2 V 2 3 3

(13)

It can also be shown that:

R2 + X 2 Solving equation (14) for R will result in: R= V3
2 4

P1 =

R V3

(14)

(5)

Where, V is the difference between the controlled and reference voltages, d is half of the LTC dead-band, Td is the maximum time delay of the inverse-time characteristic, T f is the intentional time delay, and Tm is the mechanical time delay [1]. In non-sequential mode of operation all time delays are given by equation (5).

V3 4 P1 2 X 2 (15) P1 It was found by investigation that the above solution is only valid with the plus sign. Finally, replacing R in equation (13) from equation (15), and considering that following each taping the induction motor active power P1 is recovered in steady state to the motor

constant demand Pm , equation (10) can be rewrite as following: n I th (16) V3 = G2 + B2 Where:

G = G 2 + Gth + B = B2 + Bth +

Pm + P3 V3
2

(17)
2

XPm 2 V3
2 4

+
2

Q3 V3
2

(18)

V3 + V3 4 Pm X

n = n o i n i = 0,1, 2 , 3, ... (19) Considering different values for i in equation (19), equation (16) can be solved for V3 until this variable is

maximized at i = i cr . At this point if either of the constraints of OLTC in equation (4) is not yet met collapse will happen by the OLTC further operation. 2.3 The Algorithm

secondary voltage. It is assumed that the voltage and current at the primary side of OLTC are measured and the load post-disturbance parameters have been identified before the OLTC starts to operate. The OLTC tap initial ratio no , step size n , lower limit nmin, time delay TOLTC , voltage reference VR , and dead-band d are shown in Table 1. The constant OLTC time delay is set long enough to allow the induction motor to complete its active power recovery, i.e., after each OLTC operation the induction motor achieves a new steady-state condition.
V1

Z1

V2

Z2

V4

Infinite Bus

I
n
1

Sync. Gen.

Assuming that following a disturbance the system Thevenin impedance and the load parameters have already been identified by the proposed methods in [6] and [7], respectively; the following algorithm can be used to anticipate a possible voltage collapse and to estimate time to such a collapse: 1. Estimate the tap initial position using equation (3). 2. With different values of n from equation (19) solve equation (16) for the voltage magnitude V3 until it is maximized. 3. Check the OLTC constraints in equation (4) for the point which V3 is maximized. Voltage will start to collapse in the next taping if neither the voltage is recovered to its set point nor tap has exceeded its limit. 3. SIMULATION

V3

Figure 4. Four bus test system with composite load Table 1. OLTC tap initial ratio, step size, lower limit, time delay, voltage reference, and dead-band.

no n %

n min

TOLTC (sec)

VR (pu)

d%
2

1 3.1

1.5

0.85

20

0.98

Taps to collapse estimation with different disturbance sizes

The proposed method was applied to a four bus test system (Figure 4). Bus 1 is assumed to be an infinite bus. The synchronous generator dynamics in bus 2 is simulated by its electromechanical swing equation. The bus 2 frequency deviation is calculated as a proportion to the generator bus frequency deviation [7]. The load in bus 3 is a composition of induction motor, constant impedance, and constant power loads. The induction motor load is simulated as a constant demand load; i.e., following any changes in the load bus voltage the motor dynamics restores the motor active power consumption to its previous value in a few seconds. Following a disturbance, OLTC; that is simulated by its discrete-time logic described in equation (4), restores load voltage and load power by changing the tap ratio. Voltage collapse happens when the OLTC reverse control action starts, i.e., when secondary voltage drops if the tap position n is decreased aiming at raising the

To simulate a disturbance, at a certain time, Z1 and Z2 are changed from one level to another level causing sudden changes in the quantities of load. Now defining k as the ratio of the supply system Thevenin impedance to its pre-disturbance value; the magnitude of the voltage in bus 3 is shown in Figure 5 for three different values of k and the same pre-disturbance load composition. In the first case (Figure 5.a), the tap operation stops because the regulated voltage reaches its set-point value. In the second case (Figure 5.b), tap reaches its lower limit n min and stops. In the third case (Figure 5.c) voltage will collapse if it is not avoided. Three step algorithm of section 2.3 was used to estimate tap initial ratio and the number of taps to collapse for the above cases. Gauss-Seidel method was used to solve equation (16). The results are shown in Table 2. Estimated values for the tap initial ratio in Table 2 are the same as its actual value no=1. In the first and second cases collapse will not happen because as it was stated

As it can be seen in Figure 6 the estimated Vmax is not close enough (dead band=2%) to the OLTC voltage reference VR (Table 1), and hence, tap operation will continue and voltage will collapse. Simulation results shown in Figure 5 confirm all above estimated results. 3.2 Effects of the load and measurement uncertainties on the estimation

In periods up to 10 seconds the changes in the customer composite load are unpredictable (Figure 7). These small random changes and also, measurement uncertainties may affect the results of the proposed estimation method in this paper. To investigate this effect random changes are added to the load admittance (Figure 8).

Figure 5. Simulation of the OLTC primary and secondary voltage changes, (a): k=1.4, (b): k=2.5, (c): k=3 Table 2. Estimated initial tap ratio and taps to collapse for different values of k in k = Z th(post disturbancet) / Z th(pre disturbance)%
K

Estimated n o (pu) 1 1 1

Taps to

Vmax
29 12 4

Tap change limit 10 10 10

Voltage Collapse No No Yes

1.40 2.50 3.00

Figure 7. Time measurements of load voltage and current magnitudes in the Brisbane load bus.

before OLTC limit will be reached by 10 successive tap changes. In the third case (k=3) the estimated taps to Vmax is less than 10. Now it should be checked to see whether OLTC operation will stop before the critical point or not. The Estimated secondary (bus 3) voltage for different tap numbers is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 8. Simulation of load admittance with random changes

The estimation results for the same load composition in section 3.1 and the same disturbance sizes in Table 2 are shown in Table 3. As it can be seen the estimated taps to collapse are the same as Table 1 and the estimated tap initial ratios are very close to the actual value no=1.
Table 3. Estimated initial tap ratio and taps to collapse for with random changes in the load Taps to Vmax k Collapse Estimated n o (pu) Figure 6. Estimated OLTC secondary voltage for 10 successive tapings, k=3
1.40 2.50 3.00 0.9983 0.9991 0.9998 29 12 4 No No Yes

3.3

Effect of the load composition on the voltage collapse

Four different compositions for the total load were chosen. The constant power load is the same for all compositions. The estimated taps to collapse following a large disturbance (k=3.6) are compared in Table 4.
Table 4. Comparison of the taps to collapse for different load compositions
Case 1 2 3 4 Percentage in total load (%) P1=15, P2=80, P3=5 P1=30, P2=65, P3=5 P1=45, P2=50, P3=5 P1=60, P2=35, P3=5 Taps to Instability 3 4 5 0 Voltage Collapse Yes Yes Yes Yes (Short- term)

collapse can be identified at the first taping time. The effect of the customer load random changes on the estimation results was also investigated. The effect of load composition on the voltage stability was examined. The proposed method was confirmed by simulation. 5. [1] REFERENCES Van Cutsem, T. and Vournas, C.D., "Voltage Stability of Electric Power Systems". 1998, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ohtsuki, H., Yokoyama, A., and Sekine, Y., "Reverse action of on-load tap changer in association with voltage collapse". IEEE Transaction on Power Systems, 1991. 6(1): p. 300-306 Hong, Y.-Y. and Wang, H.-Y., "Investigation of the voltage stability region involving on-load tap changers". Electric Power Systems Research, 1995. 32: p. 45-54. Yorino, N., Funahashi, A., and Sasaki, H., "On reverse control action of on-load tap-changers". Electric Power & Energy Systems, 1997. 19(8): p. 541-548. Vournas, C.D. "On the role of LTCs in emergency and preventive voltage stability control". Power Engineering Society Winter Meeting, 2002. IEEE, Volume: 2, 27-31 Jan. 2002, New York, USA Bahadornejad, M., and Ledwich, G. , System Thevenin Impedance Estimation Using Signal Processing on Load Bus Data, in IEE HongKong International Conference on Advances in Power System Control, Operation and Management, APSCOM 2003, 11-14 Nov 2003, Hong Kong. Bahadornejad, M., and Ledwich, G. , On-line Load Characterization by Sequential Peeling, submitted to the 2004 International Conference on Power System Technology ,Powercon2004, 21-24 Nov 2004, Singapore. Bahadornejad, M., and Ledwich, G. , Studies in the OLTC Effects on Voltage Collapse Using Local Load Bus Data, in Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC2003, 28 Sept-1 Nov 2003, Christchurch, New Zealand

[2]

It can be seen in Table 4 that, as it is expected, larger induction motor load in the composition makes safer the system voltage in the long-term, but increases the risk of the short-term voltage instability. This result can be explained using Figure 8. Following a disturbance, restoration of the induction motor reactive power Q1, due to the slip increase, may bring the load total consumption beyond the supply system capacity, resulting in the short-term voltage instability (case 4). However, if the load voltage is stable in the short-term, then the reductions in the induction motor reactive power, due to the load voltage increase by the successive tapings, improves the voltage stability in the long-term, through canceling the increase in the constant impedance load consumption.

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Figure 9. Simulation of the load reactive powers, Induction motor: 60%, Constant impedance: 35%, Constant power: 5%, k=2.9

[7]

4.

CONCLUSION [8]

Based on the measured data in the local load bus a method was introduced to identify a possible voltage collapse in a system consisting of constant impedance, induction motor, and constant power loads behind a tap changer and to estimate the taps to such a collapse. It was shown that by the OLTC secondary voltage estimation the number of the required taping for a