Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

An enhanced under-voltage load-shedding

scheme to provide voltage stability
T. Amraee , A.M. Ranjbar, B. Mozafari, N. Sadati
Department of Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Received 17 April 2006; received in revised form 2 September 2006; accepted 5 September 2006
Available online 16 October 2006

Abstract
Under-voltage load shedding is one of the most important tools for avoiding voltage instability. In this paper, an optimal load-shedding algorithm
is developed. This approach is based on the concept of the static voltage stability margin and its sensitivity at the maximum loading point or
the collapse point. The traditional load-shedding objective is extended to incorporate both technical and economic effects of load shedding. The
voltage stability criterion is modeled directly into the load-shedding scheme. The proposed methodology is implemented over the IEEE 14 and
118 bus test systems and solved using a mathematical (GAMS/CONOPT) and two heuristic (PSO and GA) methods. The heuristic techniques are
employed only to validate the results.
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Load shedding; Voltage stability; Collapse point; Optimization

1. Introduction
Noting that several power system blackouts have occurred
recently around the world, voltage stability has become a major
concern of power system operators. Voltage stability refers to
the ability of a power system to maintain steady voltages at
all buses in the system after being subjected to a disturbance
from a given initial operating condition [1,2]. The present paper
concentrates on long-term voltage instability, since this type of
instability has become a major threat in many systems. Generally, there are two ways to provide voltage stability, which
are classified as preventive and corrective actions. In the first
approach, the security margin is estimated with respect to credible contingencies with a reasonable probability of occurrence,
and then appropriate preventive actions are taken by re-adjusting
the most effective controls to provide a sufficient margin when
needed. Corrective control actions, on the other hand, are usually
used for correction of security acceptable only in the presence
of severe disturbances. Load shedding may be needed if the

Corresponding author at: NIROO Research Institute, End of Poonak Bakhtari

Blvd, Shahrake Ghods, Tehran, Iran. Tel.: +98 2188079395;
fax: +98 2188590174.
E-mail address: t amraee@mehr.sharif.edu (T. Amraee).

0378-7796/$ see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2006.09.005

operating conditions violate some constraints and no control

action is available. According to the classification of power system states (i.e. normal, alert, emergency, extreme emergency
and restorative), load shedding would be allowed under the
emergency and extreme emergency states, when many system
variables are out of their normal ranges, and hence the system
is driven toward collapse. The load-shedding schemes proposed
so far can be classified into three categories. In the first group,
the amount of load to be shed is fixed a priori [3,4]. This scheme
is similar to the under-frequency load-shedding scheme. Here,
the minimum amount of load to be shed is determined using
time simulation analysis, incorporating dynamic aspects of the
instability phenomenon [5,6]. Obviously, dynamic simulation is
time-consuming and is suitable for special cases such as transient
voltage-instability analysis. In addition, it is more difficult to
incorporate a time simulation study into an optimization model.
The second group tries to determine a minimum load for shedding by estimating dynamic load parameters. In this approach,
results are very sensitive to dynamic load model parameters.
Finally, in the third group, minimum load shedding is determined
using optimal power-flow equations based on a static model of
the power system. The dynamics associated with voltage stability are often slow, and hence static approaches may represent a
good approximation. The basic idea behind this approach is to
identify a feasible solution to the power-flow equations [710].

T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

In most of these [79], the voltage stability is modeled indirectly

by maintaining voltage and transfer limits that are calculated
off-line. This is not always true for power systems, as has been
well debated in the literature [11,12]. Ref. [10] has proposed
an algorithmic method to obtain an optimal operating point by
considering the voltage stability. The paper also discusses an
approach for under-voltage load shedding, while voltage stability is assumed based on modal analysis, but how such idea could
be formulated is not mentioned. Besides, the non-linear behavior of critical eigenvalues, especially near the collapse point,
is the main flaw of this technique [13]. The present paper is
an attempt to create an optimal under-voltage load-shedding
scheme by justifying a predefined voltage stability margin based
on the technical and economic priority of the loads. This is of
paramount importance, since practically a case may arise in
which voltage and power transfer limits are admissible; however, the power system is close to the collapse point. This issue
has not been considered in previous work. Incorporation of the
loading margin and its sensitivity into the load-shedding scheme
is the subject examined in this paper.
2. The proposed methodology
Voltage instability is generally triggered by either of two
types of system disturbances: component outage and load
increase. Such disturbances increase the reactive power demand
of the transmission network. Outage of a heavily loaded transmission line or tripping of a large generating unit may lead
the system toward collapse. Under such circumstances, load
shedding is usually initiated after exhausting all other countermeasures in an attempt to arrest a voltage collapse condition.
Usually, computation of a minimum load to be shed is carried
out through an OPF framework. In this approach, the main objective is interruption cost minimization, while voltage stability
refers to voltage and transfer limits. However, such an approach
cannot guarantee sufficient margin to the collapse point. Here,
we attempt to develop a structure to cover these flaws. The main
objective is modified to consider both the technical and economic aspects of each load. A loading margin is used to ensure
voltage stability. For a particular operating point, the amount
of additional load in a specific pattern of load increase that
would cause a voltage collapse is called the loading margin.
To ensure selection of the most effective loads, we incorporate
first-order sensitivity factors of the load margin with respect to
active and reactive loads into the objective function. These factors are calculated at the saddle node bifurcation point [14]. To
ensure voltage stability, the loading margin is considered as a
soft constraint into the model. Using this indicator, the operator ensures that reactive power is provided locally. The overall
aim of load shedding is depicted in Fig. 1. Suppose that the system is normally operated at point 1. Following the occurrence
of a contingency, the PV curve changes in such a way that the
new margin becomes unsafe, although both voltage and transfer
limits are allowable. The aim of load shedding is to readjust the
initial operating point to provide a sufficient margin (i.e. moving
back P0 (point 2) to P0 Pshed (point 3)). A flow chart of the
proposed optimal load shedding is shown in Fig. 2. According

1039

Fig. 1. The aim of the proposed load-shedding scheme.

to this procedure, after occurrence of a contingency, the loading margin and its sensitivities are calculated by a continuation
power-flow method [15,16]. Under such a condition, when this
margin is less than a predefined level (min ), the power system
is voltage-unstable. In this situation, load shedding is triggered
if the other controls are exhausted. To identify a more sensitive
area, the sensitivity of the loading margin with respect to active
and reactive power is calculated at each bus (/P).

Fig. 2. Flow chart of the load-shedding procedure.

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T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

The buses with high sensitivities are selected for load shedding. Generally, we can predict the quantitative effect on the
loading margin of altering the system loading, reactive power
support, load model parameters, line susceptance, and generator dispatch. The accuracy of the estimates and the ease of
obtaining the linear estimate suggest that this method will be
of practical value in avoiding voltage collapse. The proposed
scheme can be armed and disarmed in response to system
conditions. For example, a watchdog type of scheme may be
required and armed at high load levels, but not at lower load
levels.
Load shedding is carried out based on the following mathematical model:
N


K

PDi
Min
(1)
Ci
/Pi
i=1

s.t:
0
0
PDi
+ PDi =
PGi

N


|Vi | |Vj | |Yij | cos(ij + j i )

(2)

j=1

Q0Gi

Q0Di

+ QDi =

N


|Vi | |Vj | |Yij | sin(ij + j i )

j=1

(3)

0
0
(1 + min )(PGi
PDi
+ PDi )

N


|Vic | |Vjc | |Yij | cos(ij + cj ci )

(4)

j=1

Q0Gi (1 + min )(Q0Di QDi )

N

= |Vic | |Vjc | |Yij | sin(ij + cj ci )

(5)

j=1

Vimin Vi Vimax ,
Vic

min

|Pij |

Vic Vic
max

max

(6)

i NL

(7)

ij transmission lines

Pijmax ,

|Pijc | Pijc

i NL

Qmin
Gi QGi ,

ij transmission lines
QcGi Qmax
Gi ,

min
max
PDi
PDi PDi
,

QDi
PDi
=
0
PDi
Q0Di

i NG

i ND

fixed power factor

(8)

enable us to obtain an optimal solution are PDi and QDi . The

equality and non-equality constraints are met at points 2 and 3
in Fig. 1. Equality constraints are load-flow equations for either
point 2 (initial state) or point 3 (stressed state post-contingency).
In addition to operational constraints such as voltage and transfer
limits, the minimum and maximum amount of dispatchable load
at each bus are also considered as constraints. In the case of contingency occurrence, we can use lower security criteria than the
normal case. Therefore, in this model the minmax boundaries
for voltage and transfer limits are different for both the initial
and the stressed conditions. In our simulations, this flexibility is
ignored for the sake of simplicity.
3. PSO algorithm
Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is an evolutionary computation technique first introduced by Kennedy and Eberhart [17].
The development of its idea was based on simulation of social
behavior of groups of animals, such as a flock of birds, a school
of fish, or a group of people who pursue a common goal in their
lives. Like other stochastic searching techniques, PSO is initialized by generating a population of random solutions, which is
called a swarm. Each individual is referred to as a particle and
presents a candidate solution to the optimization problem. A particle in PSO, like any living object, has a memory that retains the
best experience, which is gained during searching of the solution area. In this technique, each candidate solution is associated
with a velocity vector [17,18]. The velocity vector is constantly
adjusted according to the corresponding particles experience
and to the experiences of the particles companions. Accordingly, in the PSO algorithm, the best experiences of the group
are always shared with all particles, and hence it is expected that
the particles move toward better solution areas. The algorithm
gbestPSO is an implementation for which the neighborhood
is the entire swarm, while lbestPSO refers to implementation
for which a smaller neighborhood size is used. This characteristic differentiates the PSO method from other existing
evolutionary optimization techniques. According to the abovementioned concepts, gbestPSO operation can be mimicked as
shown in Fig. 3. In an n-dimensional search space, let the position and velocity of the ith individual be represented as the vec-

(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)

Despite the usual load-shedding objective that contains the

interruption cost, the present objective also selects the most
effective loads in terms of voltage stability. Incorporating the
sensitivity term (/P) attains this feature. Index 0 refers to
parameters in the initial state. Gi and Di account for generation
and consumption at bus i, respectively. Parameters P and Q are
related to active and reactive power. The control variables that

Fig. 3. Concept of particle movement in the PSO algorithm.

T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

1041

tors xi = (xi1 , . . ., xid , . . ., xin ), and vi = (vi1 , . . . , vid , . . . , vin ),

respectively. The best previous experience of the ith particle is
recorded as pbesti = (pbesti1 , . . ., pbestid , . . ., pbestin ).
The best value among all the experiences of all individuals
in the group is stored and referred to as gbest = (gbest1 , . . .,
gbestd , . . ., gbestn ). The modified velocity of each particle can
be first calculated with regard to the personal initial velocity, the
distance from the personal best position and the distance from the
global best position, as shown in Eq. (13), which determines the
direction along which the ith particle should be taken. Therefore,
the new position of this particle can be determined using Eq.
(14).
(t+1)

vid

(t)

(t)

= vid + c1 rand1 (0) (pbestid xid )

(t)

+ c2 rand2 (0) (gbestd xid )

(t+1)

xid

(t)

(t+1)

= xid + vid

(13)

(14)

In these equations, i = 1, 2, . . ., m is the index for each particle and t is iteration number. The constants c1 and c2 are the
weighting factors of the stochastic acceleration terms, which
pull each particle toward pbest and gbest positions. Low values
allow particles to roam far from the target region before being
pulled back. On the other hand, high values result in abrupt
movement toward or back from the target region. Hence, the
learning factors c1 and c2 are often set to 2.0 according to early
experiences [17,18]. It should be noted that PSO has been found
to be robust and fast in solving non-linear, non-differentiable,
multi-objective problems. The authors of Ref. [19] introduced
the parameter into the PSO equation to improve its performance. Suitable selection of an inertia weight in (13) provides
a balance between global and local explorations, thus requiring
fewer iterations on average to identify a sufficiently optimal solution. As originally developed, often decreases linearly from
approximately 0.9 to 0.4 during a run. In general, the inertia
weight is set according to the following equation where tmax
is the maximum number of iterations and t is the current iteration
number.
(t+1) = max

max min
t,
tmax

(15)

4. Implementing PSO into UVLS

The flow chart depicted in Fig. 4 describes the sequence of
steps that should be taken into consideration when applying
the PSO algorithm to the under-voltage load-shedding (UVLS)
problem.
A simple PSO algorithm, like the GA optimization technique,
is an iterative procedure in which the position of each particle
is a candidate for the best solution; however, unlike GA, a new
population is not created by crossover and mutation operators in
each iteration. Instead, the particles move along the directions
mainly determined by a meaningful combination of the best local
and global information available to the agents in every iteration
step. In this technique, like other population-based optimization

Fig. 4. Application of PSO to the UVLS algorithm.

methods, control variables determine the dimensions of a particle. Here, in the proposed UVLS scheme, the control variables
include the active power demand at load buses. On the other
hand, upper and lower bounds of the operational constraints,
such as limits imposed on bus voltages, the active and reactive

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T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

power outputs of the generators, and the power flow in transmission lines, determine the solution area. In this area, the aim
is to identify a solution by means of the PSO algorithm in a
way that it is feasible for normal and stressed power-flow equations (described in Section 2) at the lowest cost for the objective
function.
Thus, the PSO algorithm should be developed to address the
power-flow equations effectively.
5. Simulation results
The proposed methodology is implemented over the IEEE
14-bus and 118-bus test systems [21]. The optimization models are solved using two mathematical (GAMS/CONOPT) [20]
and evolutionary (PSO) methods. The first approach is based on
sequential quadratic programming, which has been well defined
in the literature. However, the PSO evolutionary optimization
method has not been applied to the load-shedding problem so
far. In the 14-bus test system, the load center is connected to
generation resources through long transmission lines that make
it suitable for voltage stability analysis. The 118-bus test system
is a relatively large-scale power system that is suitable to verify the computational efficiency and optimality of the proposed
evolutionary method.
5.1. Case A: the IEEE 14-bus test system
The IEEE 14-bus network topology, as well as data for generators, loads and transmission lines, can be found in Ref.
[21]. We assume that the system loading is increased to 1.4
times the base case, where all voltage profiles are within their
limits. In this situation, a disturbance causes the outage of
lines 12 and 25 simultaneously. Following this disturbance,
the voltage stability margin of the overall system becomes
negative, as shown in Fig. 5, which is obtained by the CPF
technique [15]. This means that the system moves to instability, and if there is no control action available, collapse is
inevitable.

Fig. 6. Load shed vs. stability margin.

The optimal amounts of total load shed for different values

of the stability margin are tabulated in Table 1 when applying
GAMS, PSO and GA methodologies. The optimal PSO solution
is better than for sequential quadratic programming and GA in
different stages.
As illustrated in Table 1, the total amount of load shed varies
linearly with respect to the stability margin. Fig. 6 portrays the
results achieved by the CONOPT optimization module to satisfy
pre-specified values of the voltage stability margin. The linear
relationship between the total amount of load shed and the voltage stability represents a benefit.
Given the fact that all of the population-based optimization
approaches obey a heuristic stochastic procedure to identify the
global optima, an accurate assessment of the performance of
each methodology cannot be achieved unless the solutions are
investigated statistically. To this end, Tables 2 and 3 list some
statistical measures for two heuristic methods, namely GA, and
PSO.
Table 1
Total amount of load shed vs. stability margin
Stability margin,
min (pu)

Total amount of load shed (MW)

GAMS

GA

PSO

0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.1

112.3
115.3
118.3
121.2
124.1
126.9
130
133
136
139.1
142.2

113.22
118.160
119.02
122.439
122.96
126.762
128.69
133.152
135.7389
138.996
141.94

112.165
115.268
118.088
120.019
121.904
124.712
126.63
129.687
131.83
133.788
135.88

Table 2
Mean and S.D. values for 200 trials in GA
VSM
Best solution
Mean
S.D.
Fig. 5. Pre- and post-contingency voltage stability margin.

0
113.22
122.26
17.01

0.02
119.02
127.15
17.33

0.04
122.96
128.87
3.64

0.06
128.69
133.27
2.27

0.08
135.738
137.791
5.79

0.1
141.94
151.66
8.55

T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

1043

Table 3
Mean and S.D. values for 200 trials in PSO
VSM
Best solution
Mean
S.D.

0
112.16
113.89
1.77

0.02
118.08
119.30
0.76

0.04
121.90
124.980
0.56

0.06
126.63
130.54
0.88

0.08
131.83
135.11
2.52

0.1
135.88
140.78
2.56

Fig. 9. Generator reactive reserve vs. loading margin.

sider the generator voltages as control variables in the proposed

model. According to the results shown in Fig. 10, the amount of
load shed is reduced in the case of voltage control.
5.2. Case B: the IEEE 118-bus test system
Fig. 7. Comparison of the dynamic of convergence of PSO and GA.

Tables 2 and 3 present the outcomes for the best solution,

mean value and standard deviation after 200 runs. A comparison
of the results indicates that PSO is superior to the GA algorithm
in different aspects. The SD value shows how close the final
solutions are to the mean value, which is a good measure of
the stiffness and robustness of each algorithm. The dynamic of
convergence, averaged over 200 runs, is illustrated in Fig. 7 for
the PSO and GA algorithms. It is clear that PSO has a faster
convergence than GA.
The voltage profile of the system is shown in Fig. 8, which
also depicts the PV curve. As deduced from this figure, near the
collapse point, the voltage profile is acceptable but the stability
margin is very small. This emphasizes that the voltage stability should be modeled using a proper indicator instead of only
considering voltage and transfer limits.
Relieving the reactive power outputs of the most effective
generators is another benefit of applying the stability margin
index into the load-shedding scheme. As shown in Fig. 9, during
load shedding, the more effective a generator is, the greater is
the amount of reactive output relieved.
If it is possible to take other available controls prior to or
simultaneous with the load shedding, the amount of load to be
shed could be reduced. To verify this, it is sufficient to con-

Fig. 8. Voltage profile vs. stability margin.

The IEEE 118-bus test system consists of 54 generators, 186

branches and 64 loads, the detailed characteristics of which are
given in Ref. [21]. The load demand of the system is 4242 MW,
which is distributed among 99 buses. Assume that the system
is heavily loaded by increasing the load to 2.18 times the base
case. In this situation, a disturbance causes the outage of lines
68 and 4249 simultaneously. At this moment, the system operator decides to switch off the reactors at buses 5 and 37 to restore
voltage to a permissible level. The nodes in weak voltage areas
are the best locations that determine the overall voltage stability/instability status of the system. Therefore, the PV curves
for the normal and post-contingency cases are depicted for the
first five critical load buses in Fig. 11. This shows that in the
post-contingency situation, the system has a smooth PV curve
with acceptable voltage profiles, but insufficient voltage stability margin, which can mislead the system operator. In fact, the
post-contingency situation is stable but not secure.
In this situation, the system is near the collapse point, and if
there is no control action available, collapse is inevitable. Here,
it is assumed that all other countermeasures are exhausted and
load shedding is triggered as the last resort. The optimal amounts
of total load shed for different values of stability margin are
tabulated in Table 4 when applying GAMS/CONOPT and PSO
methodologies.

Fig. 10. Reduction in the load shed due to voltage control.

1044

T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

Fig. 12. Linear relationship between load shed and stability margin for case B.
Table 5
Sensitivity factor for all buses
Fig. 11. Pre- and post-contingency PV curves for the IEEE 118-bus system.

This study shows that PSO efficiency is not affected significantly by increasing the dimensions of the problem. The optimal
PSO solution is very close to sequential quadratic programming
in all stages. The importance of this point is evident by noting
that the GA method cannot identify an optimal solution.
As shown in Fig. 12, the total amount of load shed varies
linearly with respect to the stability margin (similar to case A),
which represents a benefit. The ability to detect the most effective
buses for voltage stability is one of the most important features
of a load-shedding scheme. Here, it is demonstrated that the proposed load-shedding scheme has this functionality. To this end,
we should first determine the most effective buses for voltage stability. One method for this is to determine bus participant factors
through modal analysis. Participation factors can be interpreted
as the sensitivity of a given eigenvalue with respect to the corresponding load buses. However, these factors are only computed
for load buses. In other words, it cannot include PV buses having
loads. Sometimes it may be the case that the load on a PV bus
is the most effective load. Hence, in the present paper, we use
Table 4
Total amount of load shed vs. stability margin
Stability margin, min (pu)

0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.1
0.11
0.12
0.13
0.14
0.15

Total amount of load shed (MW)

GAMS

PSO

0
3.5273
13.9959
24.4556
36.1048
48.0179
60.1263
72.4396
84.963
97.7127
110.8061
124.1617
137.7645
151.6294
165.7774
180.2352

0.00000
3.56568
14.02804
24.49979
36.26811
48.01261
60.14830
72.50647
84.98935
97.72711
111.00933
125.79978
139.55745
152.32692
166.55429
180.72244

Area no.

Bus no.

/P|SNB

1
2
3

1 to 14, 117
15, 19, 33, 41, 18, 20, 40, 42, 39, 17, 21
34, 35, 36, 37, 113, 43, 22, 29, 31, 28, 32,
38, 27, 114, 115, 30
23, 8, 25, 26, 9, 10, 24, 42, 72
Rest

=0.1

=0.025

=0.02

4
5

=0.01

=0

the sensitivity method. In this method the sensitivity of the voltage stability margin with respect to active and reactive power is
computed at each bus. Buses with high sensitivities are the most
effective ones for the voltage stability margin. According to the
sensitivity factors, the IEEE 118-bus test system can be divided
into five security zones as shown in Table 5. It is more reliable
to shed loads sequentially from areas of higher sensitivity areas
to areas of lower sensitivity. This issue can reduce the computational efforts significantly. The 10 individual buses with higher
sensitivities are ranked in Table 6.
As previously mentioned, some loads with high rankings are
located on generation buses. Depending on the system configuration and operational conditions, there maybe a case for which
the loads on generation buses have a greater impact on the stability margin. Without considering this important issue, a greater
amount of load shedding may be required to provide a predefined
stability margin. In the following, to demonstrate the ability of
the proposed model to detect the most effective buses for voltage
stability, we first assume that all loads have the same curtailment
Table 6
Sensitivity factor for first 10 buses
Bus no.

/P|SNB

1
3
2
4
5
117
6
7
11
12

0.106
0.105
0.102
0.101
0.101
0.101
0.1
0.1
0.099
0.098

T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

Table 7
Load shed pattern

Table 9
Total load shed for two cases

min (pu)

min (pu)

0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.1
0.11
0.12
0.13
0.14
0.15

Amount of load shed (MW)

Bus 1

Bus 2

Bus 3

Bus 4

Bus 6

Bus 117

0
3.527
13.99
24.46
36.1048
48.0179
55.59
55.59
55.59
55.59
55.59
55.59
55.59
55.59
55.59
55.59

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4.9103
11.759
15.576
19.478
21.8
21.8

0
0
0
0
0
0
4.54
16.85
29.373
42.123
42.51
42.51
42.51
42.51
42.51
42.51

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3.526
11.463
19.531
29.089
37.35

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3.9

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
7.8
10.78
12.626
14.521
16.788
19.09

0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.1
0.11
0.12
0.13
0.14
0.15

1045

Total load shed (MW)

First case

Second case

0
3.5273
13.9959
24.4556
36.1048
48.0179
60.1263
72.4396
84.963
97.7127
110.8061
124.1617
137.7645
151.6294
165.7774
180.2352

0
3.9111
15.5732
27.3025
39.7496
52.9851
89.2801
146.2369
237.153
296.48

No solution

price. The optimal load-shedding pattern is then obtained in such

a way that a predefined stability margin is satisfied. The optimal
solutions for this case study are tabulated in Table 7. According
to Tables 6 and 7, it is obvious that the proposed UVLS is well
customized to select the most effective loads.
5.3. Case C: local monitoring versus global monitoring
The traditional under-voltage load-shedding schemes are
implemented based on local measures in terms of voltage reduction. In other words, most of these systems use rather simple
rules, such as low voltage, and quite coarse actions, such as
local load shedding. In this section, the aim is to show that a
centralized global load-shedding scheme based on voltage stability margin criteria can perform better than traditional local
schemes that are based on percentage voltage reduction. It is
shown that the local method leads to a greater amount of load
shedding than the centralized method. To do this, we consider
two different cases. In the first case the candidate buses for load
shedding are selected based on voltage-stability sensitivity factors, while in the second case the candidate buses are selected
based on the percentage voltage reduction. For the two cases, it
Table 8
Candidate buses for two cases
Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

First case

Second case

Bus no.

/P|SNB

Bus no.

V (pu)

1
3
2
4
117
6
7
11
12
13

0.106
0.105
0.102
0.101
0.101
0.1
0.1
0.099
0.098
0.089

44
43
22
16
21
72
99
92
45
103

0.831
0.861
0.866
0.879
0.888
0.9
0.902
0.903
0.905
0.908

Fig. 13. Behavior of the load-shedding process for both cases.

is assumed that the condition of the system is similar to Case B.

It is also assumed that in each case the first ten buses with high
rankings are involved in load shedding, as listed in Table 8.
The proposed load-shedding scheme is simulated for both
cases. The simulation results are given in Table 9 and Fig. 13.
It can be deduced from the results that in the second case, the
system is subject to a greater cost than the first case owing to
greater load shedding. Also, it is inferred from Fig. 13 that the
linear behavior of load shedding in the first case is no longer
valid for the second case.
6. Conclusion
An optimal under-voltage load-shedding scheme to provide
long-term voltage stability is proposed and solved using three
distinct methods. This approach considers both technical and
economic aspects of each load by incorporating the sensitivities
of the voltage stability margin into the traditional cost-based
objective function. Providing a sufficient margin to the collapse
point, the loading margin index allocates reactive power sup-

1046

T. Amraee et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 77 (2007) 10381046

ply locally. The proposed PSO algorithm can quickly identify a

global optimum solution.
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