1.0.

INTRODUCTION

Power system networks are interconnected and have been restructured in almost
everywhere in the world to create competition between different power producers. This has
resulted into increased complexity and emergence of several new threats. Power system
instability has been considered as an important threat for researchers and utilities since 1920.
Traditionally, power system stability meant maintenance of synchronous operation between
different generating units. Voltage instability has been considered as a new type of instability
since last three decades and it usually may occur in heavily loaded and stressed power
systems. Voltage collapse is the process by which voltage instability leads to the loss of
voltage in a significant part of the system. This phenomenon will lead to the blackout at
consumer end.

2.0. MAIN CONTENT

2.1 Voltage collapse

Voltage collapse may be described as a rapid and uncontrolled drop of bus voltage due to the
dynamic behaviour and/or increase in load at the bus. This condition happens because of the
amount of reactive losses significantly exceeding the reactive resources available to supply
them. It is generally characterized by inadequate reactive power support in a high load area. it
is described in as: “a power system at a given operating state and subject to a given
disturbance undergoes voltage collapse if post-disturbance equilibrium voltages are below
acceptable limits.” voltage collapse can extend across the whole power system or be limited
to a certain system area. The term voltage collapse is also defined in as the process by which
the sequence of events accompanying voltage instability leads to a blackout or abnormally
low voltages in a significant part of the power system. Voltage Collapse may result in outage
of system elements and may include interruption in service to customers

2.2 Causes of voltage collapse

The voltage collapse phenomenon is the sequence of voltage instability in the power
system network. The main symptoms of voltage collapse are – low voltage profiles, heavy
reactive, power flows, inadequate reactive support, and heavily loaded systems. As we
know, the instability of the power system is the main factor that can contribute to the voltage
collapse. There are a few of reasons that can affect the power system stability such as:

• Inability of the power system to meet the demand for reactive power due to a mismatch
between load demand and supply of reactive power.
• Progressive fall or rise of the voltage at some buses
• Transfer of active and reactive power over a highly inductive transmission network to
electrically long distance load resulting in voltage drop.
• Loss of load in an area, or tripping of transmission lines and other elements by their
protective systems.
• loss of synchronism of some generators may result from these outages or from operating
conditions that violate field current limits.
• heavily stressed and/or weak power systems.
 Flexible ac transmission lines (FACTS) and HVDC are the emerging technology
widely adopted for the control of real and reactive power flow of a large interconnected
system. Flexible alternating current transmission systems (facts) are new devices emanating
from recent innovative technologies that are capable of altering voltage, phase angle and/or
impedance at particular points in power systems. Their fast response offers a high potential
for power system stability enhancement apart from steady state flow control. FACTS
controllers are used to control reactive power, while the role of HVDC is used for economic
reasons for the interconnection of submarine cables longer than 50km or overhead lines over
1000km.

The causes of voltage instability can be overcome by adopting one or more of the
following compensating devices:

• Series capacitive compensation: this results in reducing the series reactive impedance of the
transmission corridor thereby minimizing the voltage drop along the line, the receiving-end
voltage variation as well as the possibility of voltage collapse. It can be utilized to provide
power oscillation damping and towards increasing the transient stability limit. Examples of
series compensations includes among others: TSSC
(thyristor switched series capacitor), TCSC ( thyristor controlled series capacitor) and
SSSC( static synchronous series compensator)

• Shunt reactive compensation: this includes svc (static var compensator) and
statcom (static synchronous compensator) based on voltage source converters
(VSC) - used mostly in custom power devices for the control of both active and reactive
power- for the control of the voltage profile, the reactive power as well as increasing the
steady state available transmission capacity (ATC) of the transmission corridor. Shunt
compensation technique is widely accepted as a means of supplying the reactive power
demand and regulating the terminal bus voltage. It increases the rotor angle (transient)
stability of the system and provides effective damping of power oscillations by changing the
power flow during and immediately after disturbances.

2.6 Voltage Collapse Mitigation

In order to avoid the voltage collapse, there are a few methods can be taken:
a- Anticipate the problem by using load flow and stability studies. By using these methods
the system conditions that may lead to voltage instability can be identify.
b- Use appropriate diagnostic techniques to provide early warning of the voltage stability
problems. Since voltage collapse is a wide area problem, these techniques often need
communications assistance.
c- Provide temporary reactive support until operator action can stabilize system.
d- Provide permanent reactive support because the lack of reactive power sources that causes
voltage to drop. Switched capacitors are a popular means of providing such support.
e- Provide an appropriate mix of static and dynamic sources of reactive support.
f- Temporary load relief by blocking tap changers or reducing distribution supply voltage.
g- Shed load is an alternative and it is the ultimate short term mitigation action.
3.0. CONCLUSION

4.0 REFERENCE

1. C. W. Taylor, Power System Voltage Stability, McGraw Hill, 1994

2. IEEE/CIGRE Joint Task Force on Stability Terms and Definitions, “Definitions and
Classification of Power System Stability” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 19, no.
2,May 2004, pp 1387-1401.
3. N.G. Hingorani and L. Gyugyi, Understanding FACTS. Concepts and Technology of Flexible
AC Transmissin systems. New York: IEEE Press, Wiley-Interscience, 2000.
4. M. N. Omara and T. M. Salim, “Voltage Instability and Voltage Collapse”, International
Conference on Communication, Computer and Power, February 15-18, 2009.
5. M. Begovic (Vice Chair), J. Bright, T. Domin, S. Easterday-McPadden, A. Girgis,
W.Hartmann, C. Henville (Chair), M. Ibrahim, K. Kozminski, R. Marttila, G. Michel, K.
Mustaphi, D. Novosel, B.Pettigrew, M. Sachdev, H. Shuh, P. Solanics, J. Williams, “Voltage
Collapse Mitigation”, IEEE Power System Relaying Committee, Substation Protection
Subcommittee,1996.