Investigation of Wind Farm on Power System Voltage

Stability Based on Bifurcation Theory

Zhiyuan Zeng, Xianqi Li, Jianzhong Zhou, Yongchuan Zhang
School of Hydropower and Information Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China

AbstractVoltage stability has been well investigated for the

traditional power system using bifurcation theory since two
decades ago. This paper studies the impact of wind farm on
voltage stability of power system with and without reactive power
compensation devices. The static reactive compensation devices
including static capacitor banks and static var compensators
(SVC) are used to improve the maximum loadability. The
continuation method for power flow is used to obtain the system
PV curves and determine the maximum loadability. The type of
instability could possibly be of either Hopf. bifurcation or saddle
node bifurcation. The equivalent wind farm model is established
to replace the whole wind farm with a high number of wind
turbines. The IEEE 14 bus benchmark system is used to
demonstrate the reactive power compensation devices to support
the voltage stability after wind farm integration into a power
grid.
Keywords-Voltage Stability Hopf Bifurcation Wind Farm
Static Reactive Compensation

I.

INTRODUCTION

The ability to maintain voltage stability has become a growing

concern for the planning and operating todays stresses power
systems. It has been lengthy studied using bifurcation theory
for the traditional power systems in the past two decades
[1][2]. Wind energy has become one of the most important
and promising sources of renewable energy all over the world,
mainly because it is considered to be nonpolluting and
economically viable with the rapid development of related
wind turbine technology. With wind farms capacities
continuously increasing, the impact of wind farm integration
on voltage stability has attracted more concerns.
The dynamic of a large class of power systems can be
represented by parameter dependent differential-algebraic
models of the form

x = f ( x, y , , p )
0 = g ( x, y , , p )

(1)

When the parameters and/or p (such as load of the system)

vary, the stable equilibrium points may lose its dynamic
stability at local bifurcation points. These equilibrium points
are asymptotically stable if all the eigenvalues of the system
state matrix have negative real parts. As the parameters
change, the eigenvalues associated with the corresponding
equilibrium point change as well. Upon parameters variation,
local bifurcation analysis of equilibria of the DAE model often

results in three major bifurcations, saddle node (SN), Hopf and

singularity induced (SI) bifurcations. The point where a
complex conjugate pair of eigenvalues reach the imaginary
axis with respect to the changes in (, p), say (x0, y0, 0, p0), is
known as a Hopf bifurcation point. More detailed discussions
about the stability of power systems DAE model are in [3].
The fast growth of wind generation has led to concern about
the effect of wind power on the voltage stability of the power
grid. Compared to the conventional power plants, wind parks
exhibit certain singular characteristics, especially for variable
speed wind turbines, which not only produce reactive power
but also absorb it. The reactive power supporting capability
directly changes the voltage stability of power grid. In [4], an
aggregate model of a grid-connected wind farm for power
stability has been studied. It concentrated on the shaft systems
of the wind turbines when a simplified aggregate model of the
wind farm is used in voltage stability investigations. In [5], it
analyzed the voltage stability in a weak connection wind farm.
The possibility of network voltage drop and instability are
investigated by the detailed electromagnetic transient
simulation program.
This paper is structured as follows: the foundation of power
system stability and bifurcation analysis is described in section
II. In section III, wind farm model is established. Simulation
results are presented which illustrate various effects on the
power system voltage stability bifurcations theory in Section
IV. In section V, a summary is given and the conclusion of
this paper is presented.
II.

BASIC BACKGROUND

Static and dynamic approaches were presented in [6] to

analyze voltage stability. Static approaches like sensitivity
analysis, modal analysis and P-V and Q-V methods for
voltage stability assessment use a system condition or
snapshot for voltage stability evaluation. They usually solve
power flow equations of the network with specific load
increments until the point of voltage collapse is reached.
These techniques allow examination of a wide range of system
conditions and can provide much insight into the nature of this
phenomenon by computation of the contributing factors. For
small disturbance analysis, the dynamic approach is based on
the eigenvalue computation of the linearized system, while for
large disturbance analysis a complete time domain simulation
is required.

978-1-4244-2487-0/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

Typically, PV curve analysis is widely used in the industry

for analyzing voltage stability problems [7]. Continuation
Power Flow (CPF) presents a way to plot complete PV curves
by automatically changing the value of the loading parameter
( ). The principle of continuation is a mathematical technique
in which the path of an established solution of a system of
equations is followed around parameter space when a control
parameter is varied. Implementing a predictor---corrector
scheme, a continuation algorithm can trace the path of an
already established solution as the parameters are varied [8].
Bifurcation analysis is appropriate for voltage stability since
it is observed that the instability that may occur usually
coincides with the singularity of system state Jacobian, which
is the necessary condition of saddle-node bifurcation. If a
constant power load is used as the bifurcation parameter, the
SNB point corresponds to the nose point of the PV or QV
curve. The physical explanation is that the load power reaches
its maximum which can be transmitted through the network.
Mathematically, the Jacobian matrix has a zero eigenvalue
when evaluated at the SNB point. When Hopf bifurcation
occurs, the system suddenly starts oscillating, and then it may
keep on periodic oscillating or lose stability at last by
increasing the amplitude continuously [9].
WIND FARM MODEL

3.1 wind turbine model

A complete wind turbine model includes wind speed model,
wind generator model, and corresponding controller model. In
this paper, the composite wind model presented in [10] is used,
which has been demonstrated accuracy and efficiency. Wind
generator and controller are used the simplified models, which
is given in detail in [11].
3.2 Aggregated model
A complete model of a wind farm with a high number of
wind turbines, may lead to compute an excessive and
impractical number of equations. The size of the wind farm
model may be reduced by aggregating several wind turbines
with similar incoming wind into a bigger turbine called
aggregated model. The mechanical and electric parameters per
unit are preserved, and the nominal power is increased up to
the sum of the nominal power of the whole set of turbines to
obtain the parameters of the aggregated turbine [12].
Due to the wide range of distribution and geographically
variations, sometimes a large wind farm will cover several
square kilometers. Therefore, the wind farm equivalent model
includes an aggregated model of the generation systems and a
dynamic simplified model of each individual wind turbine
approximating the operation points of each wind turbine
according to the corresponding incoming wind speed[13]
Meanwhile the equivalent wind turbine presents n-times the
size of individual wind turbines, and therefore a rated power
equal to n-times the rated power of individual wind turbines,
where n is the number of aggregated wind turbines. For
example, thirty wind turbines are equivalent into three wind
turbines under the three typical wind speeds conditions and
three aggregated rated powers, as shown in Fig.1.

Fig. 2. IEEE 14 bus benchmark system

1
0.9

operating point
HB

HB

0.8
Bus 14 voltage (p.u.)

III.

Fig. 1. Wind farm detailed and aggregated model

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
30 DFIGs pre-contingency PV curve
3 DFIGs pre-contingency PV curve
30 DFIGs post-contingency PV curve
3 DFIGs post-contingency PV curve

0.3
0.2

259

272

285
298
Total System Load (MW )

311

324

Fig. 3. PV curve for the system with detailed and aggregated wind farm
model under the normal and contingency conditions

RESULTS

1
HB
0.9

Original System PV Curve

DFIG System PV Curve

HB

V14 (p.u.)

0.8
SNB

0.7

SNB

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
259

272

285
298
311
Total System Load (MW )

324

337

Fig. 4. PV curves for the system with synchronous generator and wind farm
Origianl System PV Curve
Internal Network
Parameters Increased
System PV Curve(*5)

0.9
0.8

Internal Network
Parameters Decreased
System PV Curve(*0.01)

V14 (p.u.)

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3

259

272

285
298
Total System Load (MW )

311

324

Fig. 5. PV curves for the system with wind farm after changing parameters
Normal Operation
----- Line 2-4 removing Contingency

0.9

HB
0.8

0.7
V 14(p.u.)

All results presented in this section are obtained from a slight

modified of the IEEE 14 bus benchmark system, which was
described in detail [14]. The system consists of five
synchronous machines, three of which are synchronous
compensators used only for reactive power support,
represented with subtransient models and with IEEE type-1
exciters. There are 11 loads in the system, totaling 259 MW
and 81.3 Mvar, represented as constant power loads (PQ
loads). To examine the wind farm effect, the transmission
lines in the IEEE 14 bus test system were modified
appropriately to achieve a realistic wind penetration level. The
one-line diagram of the system can be seen in Fig. 2. The
original system of this reference was modified to include a
wind farm composed of 30 turbines of 2 MW each. The
dynamic model of the wind farm includes an equivalent model
of its internal electric network; thus, an equivalent wind
generator at 2 MW is considered. The wind farm is connected
to the grid through 25kV/69kV transformers. The parameters
of modified transmission lines and equivalent wind turbine are
given in Appendix.
The comparative results of PV curves between detailed and
aggregated wind model are shown in Fig.3. The simulation
results are very similar under the normal and contingency
operating conditions. Therefore, the aggregated wind farm
model can be approximately used to replace the whole wind
farm to save time computation and improve efficiency.
The dynamic behavior of the power system has been changed
after the wind farm integration, and it is depicted in Fig. 4.
The maximum loadability and Hopf. bifurcation (HB) will
decrease due to wind farm replacing the synchronous
generator at bus 2. The cause is the wind farm internal
network decreasing the voltage margin. The internal network
parameters for the step-up transformer and transmission lines
are changed to verify it. With the parameters increasing, the
loadability will decrease. On the contrary, the loadability will
increase, and the result is shown in Fig.5.
With the wind speed various, the output power of wind farm
will change correspondingly. The dynamic behavior of three
wind speed conditions is shown in Fig.6. With wind speed
increasing, under the limit of wind turbines, the loadability
will be improved, either the Hopf. bifurcations or saddle node
bifurcations.
The wind farm reactive power includes wind turbine and
wind electric field of reactive power compensation device.
First of all, should make full use of wind power generating
units of reactive power capacity and its ability to regulate, if
only the wind turbine reactive power capacity can not meet the
needs of system voltage regulator, we need to consider the
installation of wind power reactive power compensation
device. Wind power reactive power compensation devices
division can be switched capacitors or reactor group and, if
necessary, can be used for regulating the SVC or other more
advanced reactive power compensation device. A static
capacitor bank to compensate for the reactive power drawn by
the induction generator is connected at the bus.

SNB

0.6

High W ind Speed

PV Curve

0.5

Medium W ind Speed

PV Curve

0.4

Low W ind Speed

PV Curve
0.3
259

272

285
298
Total System Load (MW )

311

324

Fig. 6. PV curves for the system with wind farm under the various
wind speeds
1
Original System HB
0.9

HB after DFIG with SVC

HB after DFIG with

Capacitor Bank
0.8

0.7
V14 (p.u.)

IV.

SNB
0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2
259

272

285

298
311
Total System Load (MW )

324

337

Fig. 7. PV curves for the system with reactive compensation devices

The internal parameters are not changed, but the reactive

compensation devices are added to improve the system
voltage margin. But the phenomenon can be found that static
capacitor will decrease the HB, although the loadability is
increased. However, the SVC will improve the HB at the same
time to increase the loadability. Moreover, the SVC is
installed on the common bus of wind farm.
Finally, a power stability stabilizer (PSS) is used to remove
the HB and improve the stability.
V.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper investigates that using bifurcation theory to study

the impact of wind power on the system voltage stability. The
aggregated model is used to replace the whole wind farm. The
result shows that the discrepancy is very small under the
condition of either normal or contingency operation. Therefore,
the aggregated model can be used to study the voltage stability
with reducing calculation complexity. Meanwhile, traditional
switched capacitor banks cannot easily follow voltage swings
caused by a wind farm, since these devices are only designed
to correct slowly-changing voltages that naturally occur as
load cycles over 24 hours. A static var compensator (SVC) is a
much better solution. This device is similar to a switched
capacitor bank, but instead of mechanical switches, electronic
semiconductors are used thus achieving fast and continuouslyvariable reactive power output.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Static Capacitor Bank parameters

Voltage
Power
rating
rating
(kV)
(MW)
SC 1
22
25
SC 2
20
25
SC 3
18
25
SVC parameters
Parameters
Type
Power (MVA)
Regulator time constant--Tr (s)
Regulator gain--Kr (p.u./p.u.)
Reference voltage (p.u.)
Bmax (p.u.)
Bmin (p.u.)

APPENDIX

[2]
[3]

[4]

[6]

[7]
[8]

The parameters of those transmission lines near to wind farm

will be modified as follows.

[9]

Constant wind speed parameters.

Resistance
Reactance
Susceptance
(p.u.)
(p.u.)
(p.u.)
Line 1
2*0.05695
2*0.17388
2*0.034
Line 3
2*0.01938
2*0.05917
2*0.0528
Line 7
2*0.05403
2*0.22304
2*0.0492
(*The parameters about wind speed without being listed will be zero)
Wind turbine parameters
Rated
Active
power
power
(MW)
(p.u.)

WT 1
WT 2
WT 3

22
20
18

0.667
0.667
0.667

Normal
wind
speed
(m/s)
14.88
14.50
14.10

Air
density
rho
(kg/m3
)
1.225
1.225
1.225

Filter time
constant
tau(s)

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]
4.0
4.0
4.0

Susceptance
(p.u.)
0.8
0.8
0.8

values
1
59.3
5
1000
1.00
1.00
-1.00

REFERENCES
[1]

[5]

The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Claudio

Caizares in the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada and Dr. Federico Milano, for his excellent simulation
software PSAT and many valuable discussions.

Frequency
rating
(HZ)
60
60
60

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