Reactive Power Optimization Considering the

Probability of Voltage Violation Due to Wind Farm

Connection

YU Yue
and HU Jianchen

Hainan Power Grid Company,
Haikou 528000, China
yuy@hn.csg.cn

CHEN Yan, WANG Meng-lin,
and ZHANG Yong-jun
Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Technology of
Guangdong Province,
South China University of Technology,
Guangzhou 510640, China

AbstractA new reactive power optimization model involved
the probability of voltage violation (PVV) and power losses to
resolve the stochastic impact of wind power injection on
voltage regulation. The derivation of PVV is given and
applied to a variable-speed constant-frequency (VSCF) wind
turbine firstly, which is calculated by combining the
probability of wind farm power output and the relationship
between the power output of wind farm and nodal voltage of
power grid. A case study of the proposed model for a regional
power grid in China is presented. The simulation shows that
the proposed model has the advantages of voltage control
when the power output of wind farm is changed frequently.
The novel model also has better adaptability of the reactive
power optimization.
Index Terms--Wind power; power grid; voltage control;
reactive power optimization; voltage violation
I. INTRODUCTION
With more wind farms (WFs) connected to power
systems, the randomness and intermittent characteristic of
wind power will bring more and more complex fluctuation
to the system voltages. Automatic Voltage Control (AVC)
system which is based on real-time reactive power
optimization will be greatly affected therefore, failing to
reach the expected loss reduction or guarantee the voltage
profile quality in some cases. More specifically, the
control strategy of AVC usually consists of the regional
reactive power optimization strategy and the local voltage
correction strategy. The first strategy is usually performed
at intervals of 15-30 minutes. During this period, any
violation of nodal voltage magnitude limit caused by load
flow changing will be regulated by the latter strategy.
Since the pursuit of power loss reduction by reactive
power optimization may cause some nodal voltages to
approach their upper limits, these nodal voltages are likely
to exceed their limits frequently with the effect of
intermittent wind power during the interval. More
operations of voltage control will be performed therefore
by the local voltage correction strategy. Unfortunately, the
risk of power system operation is increased with the
frequent operations of voltage control.
The aforementioned problem has brought lots of
attentions around the world. Current studies focus on load
flow calculation and reactive power optimization. [2]
introduced a method using asynchronous wind turbine as
PQ node in load flow calculations. [3] provided a detailed
analysis of the wind turbine (WT) stochastic load flow and
constructed a WT stochastic model. [4] introduced a
simple wind turbine stochastic model, using stochastic
load flow and genetic algorithm based on grey theory for
solution of reactive power optimization. [5-8] estimated
the available capacity and penetration of wind turbine in
dispatch by deriving wind turbine output probability
distribution before calculating economic dispatch with
wind power. [9] established the Markov Model on wind
farm and applies it to the reactive power planning
optimization. [10] introduced the induction generator
modeling of power flow analysis. However, the
uncertainty of wind power output in reactive power
optimization is still required more studies and practice.
This paper proposes a reactive power optimization
model and method with wind farm based on probability of
voltage violation (PVV). The probability distribution of
wind power output and requirement of voltage regulation
to deal with the impact on nodal voltage by wind power
are considered, aiming to minimize the probability of
voltage violation caused by wind power fluctuation.
II. NOVEL REACTIVE POWER MODEL
A. Traditional reactive power optimization model
Traditional reactive power optimization model is a
complicated non-linear mixed integer planning problem
featuring multiple variables, multiple constraints and
non-convexity
[11-13]
. Through the reactive power
optimization calculation, optimal configuration of reactive
power control equipment at a certain time period could be
Supported by The National High Technology Research and
Development of China(863 Programme)(2012AA050201)


978-1-4799-2522-3/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

achieved, thus realizing the target of making voltage
qualified and reducing loss. Objective function of
traditional reactive optimization model is

L
min f P = (1)
where P
L
refers to active power loss of the whole power
grid. Meanwhile, a number of constraints such as power
flow equation, operating range of nodal voltage, reactive
power output range of reactive power source and reactive
power output of reactive compensation equipment as well
as the tap range of transformer should also be taken into
account.
B. Novel objective function
The novel objective function is defined as:

1 L 2
min Max
i
i N
f P e e |
e
= +

(2)
where N is the bus number,
i
is the PVV of bus i,effected
by connected wind farm(s),
1
and
2
are the
corresponding weight coefficients, and Max
i
i N
|
e

represents the maximum PVV, which is used to reduce
voltage violation risks at any bus.
PVV is defined as the probability of nodal voltage
violation under the influence of volatility, intermittent
characteristic and randomness of wind power output
within a controlling period of AVC in steady-state
condition. Therefore, voltage control should be adopted to
keep nodal PVV at a low value as far as possible. In the
following section, the PVV will be introduced and apply
to variable-speed constant-frequency (VSCF) wind
turbine.
III. PROBABILITY OF VOLTAGE VIOLATION
A. Concept of PVV
When the power output of a WF is within a certain
range and with a fixed power factor, the relationship
between the WF active power and the nodal voltages are
likely to be linear
[14]
. That is to say, for a WF j in a certain
region,

j ij ij
K V P A = A (3)
where P
j
is the active power variation of WF j, K
ij
is the
impact factor of WF j to the voltage of bus i, and V
ij
is
the voltage variation of bus i. In the most of the cases, the
value of K
ij
is positive when WF operates at lagging power
factor.
Suppose that WF j operates at lagging power factor
and the voltage variation of bus i has reached the
maximum value when this WFs load turns from zero to
full, denoted as V
iMax.
Meanwhile, upper and lower limits
of voltage operation are represented as V
iMax
and V
iMin
respectively. Fig.1 shows the relationship between the
active power fluctuation of WF j and the voltage variation
of the bus i.
Wind farm in empty load
Wind farm in full loadvoltage reachs V
iMax
Wind farm in full load
Wind farm in empty loadvoltage reachs V
iMin
V
i
V
iMin
V
iMax
V
iMin
+V
iMax
V
iMax
-V
iMax
A
ij
Wind farm generates more power
which increases voltage
Wind farm generates less power
which decreases voltage

Figure 1. Relation between wind power and nodal voltage
As shown in Figure1, when the nodal voltage lies in
the interval [V
iMin
+V
iMax
,V
iMax
-V
iMax
] after the control of
AVCs regional reactive optimization (i.e., region A
ij
, the
safety interval for the bus i to WF j), nodal voltage will
not have voltage violation within a control period of AVC.
However, the region A
ij
may not exist when the capacity
of WF j is larger. Even though the region

exists, the
voltage will certainly not be adjusted within the region of
A
ij
and possibly falls into the grey region, as shown in
Figure 1. This is due to the limited resources of reactive
power adjustment. In that case, the nodal voltage will
probably have voltage violation due to the change of wind
farm status, and nodal voltage will take a certain PVV
value when affected by wind power fluctuation. PVV of
the bus i will be lower if it is close to region A
ij
.
B. Power output probability distribution of VSCF wind
turbine
Generally, the active power of VSCF wind turbine is
relevant to wind speed as described by equation (4)
[8, 15,
16]
.

in
3
p in N
N N out
out
0 ( )
1
( )
2
( )
0 ( )
v v
C Av v v v
P
P v v v
v v

<
s <
=
s <
>

(4)
where P is the active power output of wind turbine, C
p

is the wind energy conversion efficiency, is the air
density at hub height of wind wheel, A is the swept area of
wind wheel, P
N
is the rated power, and v
in
, v
N
, v
out
are
cut-in, rated and cut-out wind speed respectively.
On the other hand, numerous field test data have
shown that the probability of wind speed distribution
within a long period at a certain region can be modeled by
using the 2-parameter Weibull distribution
[16-18]
as shown
as below:

( ) 1 exp[ ( ) ]
k
v
v
c
q = (5)
where is the accumulative probability distribution of
wind speed, v is the wind speed, c is the scale parameter,
and k is the shape parameter.
Equation (4) and (5) imply that, the active power (P)
will be 0 when wind speed is higher than v
out.
And its
probability, out=1-(v
out
). When v is between v
in
and v
out
,
VSCF unit traces wind speed through maximum power
tracking system and pitch control system to keep C
p
a
constant value. In the case P is lower than rated power but

higher than P
1
, the output power of WT

at wind speed v
in
,
the corresponding wind speed is given as follows:

p
3
P
2
v
P
C A
= (6)
By incorporating (4)~(6), the accumulative probability
distribution of wind turbine active power output is given
as follows:

in
out 1
p
out 1 N
N
1 exp[ ( ) ] (0 )
( )
1 exp[ ( ) ] ( )
1 ( )
k
k
v
P P
c
v P
P P P
c
P P
|
|
|
+ s <
=
+ s <
=

(7)

C. The Calculation of PVV
In order to get K
ij
from Equation (3), two power flow
calculations are needed as listed below:
WF j is supposed to operate at a certain lagging
power factor.
The active power of WF j is set to 0 to perform the
first power flow calculation.
To perform the second power flow calculation, the
active power of WF j is increased by P
Nj
, which
is equal to the amount of rated power of WF j.
After that, the voltage variation V
ijmax
from the
first to the second power flow calculation can be
calculated. By giving P
Nj
and V
ijmax
to (3), K
ij

Can be got.
As the relationship between the WF active power and
the nodal voltage is approximately linear, the impact factor
of WF(s) to voltage of bus i can be represented as follows:

/ (
1
)
i W
j W ij
n
K
K
e
=

(8)
where W denotes the indices set of wind farm and n
W
is
the number of wind farm;
As K
ij
is known, when the voltage variation of bus i is
V
ij
with the influence of WF j alone, the minimum active
power output of WF j is defined as:

ij j ij ij
P K V P = A = A (9)
where P
ij
denotes the minimum possible output of WF j
alone which causes voltage variation V
ij
of bus i;
Therefore, the minimum active power of WF j which
could lead the voltage of bus i to exceed the upper limit is
defined as

Max
2
1
( )
i i
j
ij
ij
i
K V V
K n
P

= (10)

where n
j
is the number of wind turbine in WF j and V
i
is
the current voltage of bus i.
And the minimum active power of WF j which could
lead the voltage of bus i to exceed the lower limit is given
as:

Min
2
2
( )
i i
j
ij
ij
i
K V V
K n
P

= (11)
When V
iMax
-V
ijMax
is larger than V
i
0
, the medium
value of voltage operating range, i.e.,

0
Min max
1
( )
2
i i i
V V V = + (12)
the region A
ij
, as shown in Fig.1, should exist. By
incorporating (6) ~ (11),

Min Max
100%
Min Min
100% 100%
Min Max
100%
Max Max
2
1
1 ( )
1 ( ) ( )
0 ( )
1 ( ) ( )
i i i i
i i i
ij
i i i
i i i
ij
ij
V V V V
P V V V
V V V
P V V V
OR
|
|
|
< >
s <
=
s <
s <

(13)
where (*) denotes the calculation function in equation
(7).
When V
iMax
-V
ijMax
is less than V
i
0
, the region A
ij
, doesnt
exist. By incorporating (6) ~ (12),

Min Max
0
Min
0
Max
2
1
1 ( )
1 ( ) ( )
1 ( ) ( )
i i i i
i i i ij
i i i
ij
ij
V V V V
P V V V
P V V V
| |
|
< >
s < =
s <

(14)
Now, by incorporating (8), (13) and (14), the
i
is
given as:

ij
i
i
j W W ij
K
K n
|
|
e
=

(15)
where
i
represents the average maximum probability
of voltage violation under the influence of all wind farms
within an AVC controlling period.
IV. IMPLEMENTATION WORKFLOW OF
REACTIVE POWER OPTIMIZATION BASED ON PVV
A. The implementation workflow
Based on the above analysis, the workflow of proposed
model can be summarized as follows:
Input data of networks and operation;
Calculate K
ij
, and then K
i
;
Obtain basic parameters of wind turbine in WF j(j
W), including P
N
v
in
v
N
v
out
Aand estimate
C
p
based on equation (4); obtain active output data
of WF j(jW) in a long period and determine
parameters for equation (7) by using curve fitting
with method of least squares;
Using equation (2) as reactive power optimization
objective function and power flow equation,
operating range of nodal voltage, reactive power
range of reactive power source and reactive power
output of reactive compensation equipment as
well as tap range of transformer as constraints to
establish novel reactive power optimization model;
apply optimization algorithm with genetic
algorithm
[19]
to solve reactive power optimization.
Note that if a nodal PVV is lower enough, its voltage
shouldnt be affected by the wind power, thus WF will not

be necessary to connect to the power grid in the power
flow calculation. For this situation, the model of WF is not
necessary.
B. Set up a value for weight coefficient in the objective
function
Setting up value for weight coefficients in the
objective function must subject to the requirement of
voltage quality and the penetration of wind power. When
the penetration and the requirements of voltage quality are
high,
1
should be lower than
2
. In some extreme
conditions, for example, no voltage violation is permitted
in any condition, then
1
and
2
must be set to 0 and 1
respectively. However, in most cases, the weights
coefficients can be modified dynamically according to the
actual operating conditions. When voltage condition is not
very good, we should increase
2
and decrease
1
.
V. CASE STUDY
The following section applies the proposed model to
the summer peak-load scenarios of a regional power grid
in 2011 (The sketch map is shown in Fig. 2), with a
49.5MW wind farm Y. This section will exam the
traditional reactive power optimization model and the
proposed model to conduct reactive power optimization.
In addition, genetic algorithm
[19]
is applied for comparing
merits and demerits between the two models.
External
Grid 1
External
Grid 2
Wind farm Y
500kV substation
110kV substation
220kV sunstation
Power plant

Figure 2. Sketch map of the power grid
A. Calculation of parameters
Calculation of K
i
; According to grid-connecting
protocol of wind farm Y, the wind farm operates
with a lagging power factor of 0.95.
Calculation of wind turbine parameter; Wind farm
Y is equipped with 33 MY1.5s doubly-fed
induction generators (Rated Power: 1.5MW,
Diameter of Wind Wheel: 77.36m, Swept Area:
4638m
2
, Rated Wind Speed: 10.3m/s, Cut-in
Wind Speed: 3m/s, and Cut-out Wind Speed:
25m/s).The air density is supposed to be
1.205kg/m
3
, which is the density under standard
atmospheric pressure and a temperature of 20.
So, C
p
is given by equation (4) as 0.4912.
Fitting wind power active power output
probability distribution; select 110-day active
power output data of wind farm Y in 2011, with a
total sampling points of 31,304 (sampling rate is
every 5 minutes), as displayed in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Power output of wind farm Y
Matlab simulation tool is used for probability
analysis. The curve is displayed by using dotted lines, as
shown in Figure 4. Least square error is the method used
to derive the theoretical scale parameter c and the shape
parameter k. The fitting curve is shown in Figure 4 and
represented by solid line.

Figure 4. Curve fitting of wind power distribution
Figure 4 shows the high accuracy of the curve fitting
and it also demonstrates the correctness of equation (7).
B. Analysis of the results of reactive power optimization
The regional power grid has great impact on voltage
operation, therefore weight coefficients
1
and
2
in
equation (2) were assigned the values of 0.2 and 0.8; After
that, we used both traditional and proposed model to
calculate the summer peak-load scenario of the power
grid for 5 times. Within the calculation, 500kV
transformer substation will not be considered in voltage
regulation while WFs are disconnected to the grid. The
optimization results are shown in Table 1.
TABLE I. RESULT COMPARISON

Network Loss
MW
Average Value
of
i

Original 27.27 0.3058
Traditional
Model
25.9 0.0235
Novel Model 26.22 0.0026

It is shown that both optimization models could realize
significant loss reduction, but the average value of
i
in
proposed model is dropped by 89% compared with the
traditional model.
The voltage optimization results of a 110kV
substations in power grid are shown in Fig. 5.

Figure 5. Comparison of 110kV substation voltages
Figure 5 shows that both models could avoid voltage
violation as all reactive power optimization can do.
However, if wind power output changes rapidly in the
consequent control period of AVC, voltage violation may
probably occur. Therefore, all of the probability of voltage
violation (
i
) , must be checked when WF power output is
change.
The comparison of
i
is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Probability of voltage violation comparison
Figure 6 shows that voltage violation had occurred to
some of the buses in initial state (
i
was 1 when voltage
violation occur at the bus). By applying both of the
optimization models, no voltage violation occurred.
However, there were as many as 9 buses when
i
was high
with the traditional model. That means voltage violation
may occur at these buses when wind power output
changes in the consequent control period of AVC. And it
will cause AVC to activate immediate adjustment strategy
for more controls, which will apparently increase the
operation time of voltage regulation. In contrast, there is
only 1 bus which
i
is high by the proposed model. It is
obviously that the novel model has better adaptability to
the fluctuation of wind power.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has proposed a reactive power optimization
model, which is based on probability of voltage violation,
to resolve the voltage control problem caused by
fluctuation and intermittence of wind power. The case
study has shown that the traditional model has deficiency
in responding to wind power fluctuation. In contrast, the
proposed model and method have the advantages of
voltage control, loss reduction and lower risk of voltage
violation at buses, these advantages will apparently
decrease the operation time of voltage regulation.
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0 20 40 60 74
105
106.7
112
117.7
120
a
110kV substaion index
v
o
l
t
a
g
e
(
k
V
)
0 20 40 60 74
105
106.7
112
117.7
120
b
110kV substaion index
v
o
l
t
a
g
e
(
k
V
)
0 20 40 60 74
105
106.5
112
117.7
120
c
110kV substaion index
v
o
l
t
a
g
e
(
k
V
)

a. Initial state
b. Troditional model
c. Novel model
0 100 200
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
a
Node index

i
0 100 200
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
b
Node index

i
0 100 200
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
c
Node index

i

a. Initial state
b. Troditional model
c. Novel model