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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS
An Integrated High Side Var-Voltage Control
Strategy to Improve Short-Term Voltage
Stability of Receiving-End Power Systems
Yipeng Dong, Student Member, IEEE, Xiaorong Xie, Senior Member, IEEE,
Baorong Zhou, Wenbo Shi, Student Member, IEEE, and Qirong Jiang, Member, IEEE
AbstractTo make better use of local generators' dynamic var
reserve to improve short-term voltage stability (STVS), this paper
proposes an integrated high side var-voltage control (IHSV C) for
power plants in receiving-end power systems. The IHSV C con-
sists of a plant-level multi-machine var coordinator (MMVC) and
several unit-level high side voltage controllers (HSVCs). MMVC
coordinates the reactive power output among generators and pro-
vides control parameters for HSVCs, while HSVCs can maintain
the voltage of a pre-dened voltage control point (VCP) by regu-
lating the voltage reference of the excitation control of each gener-
ator. Therefore, when the system suffers a serious fault, IHSV C
can drive the generators to provide stronger var support. Conse-
quently, the voltage stability can be improved. A conceptual model
of the receiving-end power system in China Southern Power Grid
(CSG) is established, and the IHSV C has been validated through
a simulation analysis on the system. Both time-domain simulation
results and the voltage sag severity index (VSSI) have fully demon-
strated its performance. Therefore IHSV C offers a new and effec-
tive approach to improve STVS of receiving-end power systems.
Index TermsDynamic var reserve, high side voltage con-
trol, receiving-end power systems, short-term voltage stability,
var/voltage control.
I. INTRODUCTION
W HEN a serious fault occurs near a load center in a
receiving-end power system, the network topology
changes and reactive power ow transfers over a large range.
Meanwhile, the var demand increases signicantly with pres-
ence of the huge number of induction motors [1]. Once the
local dynamic var reserve is insufcient and remote reactive
power cannot be delivered at that time, the power system may
experience fault induced delayed voltage recovery (FIDVR)
or voltage instability [2], [3], which are the two most common
Manuscript received November 16, 2014; revised March 30, 2015 and June
21, 2015; accepted July 27, 2015. This work was supported in part by the Na-
tional Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No. 51322701). Paper no.
TPWRS-01573-2014. (Corresponding author: Xiaorong Xie.)
Y. Dong, X. Xie, and Q. Jiang are with the State Key Laboratory of
Power System, Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University,
Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: dongyp12@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn; xiexr@ts-
inghua.edu.cn; qrjiang@tsinghua.edu.cn).
B. Zhou is with the Electric Power Research Institute of China Southern
Power Grid, Guangzhou 510080, China (e-mail: zhoubr@csg.cn).
W. Shi is with the Smart Grid Energy Research Center, University of Cali-
fornia, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA (e-mail: wenbos@ucla.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPWRS.2015.2464695
0885-8950 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
types of the short-term voltage stability (STVS) problem [4].
FIDVR is a slow voltage recovery and voltage instability is
a phenomenon that the voltage reduces further and cannot be
restored. Voltage collapse is the process which follows voltage
instability and it would lead to a blackout or extremely low
voltages of the power system [4]. In recent years, several
blackouts occurred worldwide due to the STVS problem, such
as those in North America [5], Athens [6], and Brazil [7]. As
pointed out in [8], there are a variety of direct and indirect
factors contributing to the STVS problem, and the key issue is
the incapability of meeting the increasing dynamic var demand
following large disturbances. Since transport of reactive power
from neighboring areas is generally difcult and uneconomical,
any system change that calls for sudden and large dynamic var
support would lead to the STVS problem.
In China, most energy resources, such as coal and hydro, are
distributed in the western region, while most large load centers
are located in Eastern China. Therefore, long-distance transmis-
sion is required to deliver the western power to the eastern load.
China Southern Power Grid (CSG) is such a typical system. As
its receiving-end system, Guangdong power grid is character-
ized with highly clustered load, of which induction motors ac-
count for over 50%. So the STVS problem becomes a signicant
issue for Guangdong power grid.
To improve STVS after serious faults, advanced controls of
generator excitation [9] and dynamic var compensators [2], [10]
have been proposed. They can also be combined to form coordi-
nated voltage control schemes [11]. Besides, low-voltage load
shedding is also used as one of the last defenses against voltage
collapse [3], [12]. However, dynamic var compensators are ex-
pensive in cost and have limited capacity; while load shedding
would cause loss of load. In comparison, high side voltage con-
trol, which is based on the existing excitation system, can main-
tain the voltage of a point beyond the generator terminal [11],
[13]. The previous work on high side voltage control could be
grossly categorized into two groups. One is on its role in main-
taining static voltage stability, which is veried in single-ma-
chine innite-bus (SMIB) power systems [13][16]. The other is
on its usage for steady-state reactive power distribution among
multiple generators in a power plant [17], [18]. The latter is not
associated with transient control. Noticeably, previous studies
on high side voltage control have hardly considered the im-
pact of load, especially the huge number of induction motors,
on transient voltage dynamics.
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

The generators located in the receiving-end power systems,

or local generators, are close to the load center and thus their
dynamic var could play more effective role in improving
short-term voltage prole. However, previous design of gen-
erators' var control, for instance, the excitation controller
(AVR/PSS), focuses dominantly on the functions of maintaining
terminal voltage and/or damping low-frequency oscillation.
Not so much attention has been paid to the exploitation of their
dynamic var reserve to support STVS. This naturally raised
the issue of how to upgrade their var/voltage control scheme
to mitigate the said STVS problems of receiving-end power
systems. So in this paper we propose an integrated high side
var/voltage control strategy (IHSV C). On one side, it coor-
dinates the reactive power output among different generators
at a plant so as to provide the largest dynamic var reserve. On
the other side, it can maintain the voltage of a point beyond
the generator terminal, for instance, in the main transformer
or even on the external line, so that generators' dynamic var
reserve can be fully exploited to improve STVS during system
Fig. 1. Graphical illustration of VSSI. (a) FIDVR. (b) Voltage instability.
transients. As a secondary control method, IHSV C also has
other advantages, for instance, easy to deploy and implement,
low-cost (much cheaper than dynamic var compensators like
STATCOM or SVC). ow transfers after the disturbance. The reactive power loss on
As compared with dynamic var compensators, synchronous transmission line increases, so its power transmission capacity
generators generally have much larger capacities. In steady cannot match the load before failure. As a result, the system
state, a generator's var output range is strongly dependent on its cannot return to the stable equilibrium point, which results in
real power, capability curve and power factor limit. However, STVS problems.
during the short-term transient period following a fault, the The receiving-end system of CSG, or Guangdong power grid,
dynamic var capability, mainly restricted by the over-excitation is taken as an example. When a short-circuit fault occurs in the
and over-current limiters, is usually much larger than that in system, the rotation speed of induction motors will decrease
the steady-state situation. In other words, generators have large along with the fault-induced voltage sag of the load bus. The re-
dynamic var reserve, which leaves open the possibility of using active power absorbed by the motors increases, and imbalance
advanced control to exploit their potentials. So the proposed of the reactive power supply and demand is aggravated. The
IHSV C can greatly improve STVS of a receiving-end power shunt capacitor, as a low-cost reactive power compensation, is
system. In our work, it is applied to a typical receiving-end widely applied in Guangdong power grid. But its reactive power
power system threatened by serious FIDVR risks. Extensive output is proportional to the square of the voltage and thus be-
simulation studies have been carried out to investigate its come much less when the voltage drops. This further exacer-
performance and to demonstrate its effectiveness in solving the bates the STVS problem [20]. In addition, the generators inside
STVS problem. the receiving-end system are inadequate, so the system is very
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In Section II the much dependent on the external power support. In this case,
mechanism of STVS in receiving-end power systems is de- however, the transmissions are often at heavily loaded, which
scribed and a quantied index is proposed as a measure of STVS would potentially weaken the system and increase the proba-
problem. Section III details the principle and implementation bility of voltage instability [21].
of IHSV C. And then in Section IV case study is conducted on To sum up, the factors contributing to STVS problems of
a conceptual system to verify the control performance. Finally, receiving-end power systems can be classied into two types,
conclusions are drawn in Section V. namely, supply side and demand side. On the supply side, since
the receiving-end system is generally far from large generation
II. SHORT-TERM VOLTAGE STABILITY AND ITS ASSESSMENT centers, reactive power support should be supplied locally. On
the demand side, however, induction motors absorb more reac-
A. Mechanism of Short-Term Voltage Stability tive power after large disturbance while local shunt capacitors
reduce their var output, resulting in a vicious circle of voltage
The IEEE/CIGRE joint task force points out that voltage sta-
trouble. To address this STVS issue of receiving-end systems,
bility depends on the ability to maintain equilibrium between
dynamic var reserve of local generators should be fully utilized.
reactive power supply and demand. Weak voltage stability may
result in blackout or low voltage after serious faults [19]. In re-
B. Voltage Sag Severity Index
ceiving-end power systems, the reactive power absorbed by in-
duction motors will increase greatly after a serious fault, and According to Chinese Power Industry Standard (DL/T
this is the most important factor leading to the STVS problem 1234), the engineering criterion of STVS is described like
[2], [19]. In addition, the network topology changes and power this: the voltage of load bus can be restored to 0.8 p.u. in 10
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DONG et al.: AN INTEGRATED HIGH SIDE VAR-VOLTAGE CONTROL STRATEGY 3

Fig. 2. IHSV C schematic.

s after being disturbed [22]. To assess STVS of load bus, we The proposed VSSI not only reects the STVS after fault,
propose a voltage sag severity index (VSSI) as follows: but also measures the severity of the fault-induced voltage sag.
It will be used later to analyze voltage of load bus and compare
(1) the voltage stability under different conditions.
where is an index to denote the severity of voltage sag and
III. PRINCIPLE AND REALIZATION OF IHSV C
indicates whether the voltage meets the engineering criterion of
STVS. In this section, we rst introduce the principle of IHSV C and
The FIDVR and voltage instability are illustrated respectively then derive the control laws of IHSV C in two different cases.
in Fig. 1(a) and (b). It can be seen that the STVS problems, either Thus the var-voltage control scheme for a whole power plant
FIDVR or voltage instability, are characterized by a large devi- can be developed.
ation from the threshold voltage for a relatively long time.
So we use the integral of the voltage that is below the threshold A. Control Principle
value over time to measure the severity of the voltage sag, As illustrated in Fig. 2, each generator of the power plant is
as shown with the shaded area in Fig. 1. Mathematically, is connected to the high-side bus through a step-up transformer,
computed by and then incorporated into the grid through transmission lines.
The IHSV C is designed for such an -generator power plant.
(2) It is of a two-level structure. The upper level is a multi-ma-
chine var coordinator (MMVC), and the lower level is a high
where is the whole simulation duration, and is load side voltage controller (HSVC) of each generator. The inputs
voltage (in per unit) at time . is set as 0.9 p.u., according for MMVC are reactive currents of all generators, which
to the engineering standard adopted by CSG. are calculated by dividing the output reactive power by the
Since voltage collapse is a much severer stability issue than terminal voltage . It is not necessary to measure quanti-
FIDVR, an extra penalty is added to if the voltage ties from the high-voltage side. MMVC supplies each HSVC
cannot meet the engineering criterion of STVS: with the following quantities: voltage reference of a
certain voltage control point or VCP, reactive current of the
(3) corresponding generator , sum of reactive current ,
voltage droop coefcient , and etc. And then HSVC pro-
where is the duration that load voltage is below , and cesses these signals based on its internal control logic to provide
is set as 0.8 p.u. as per the engineering criterion. As compared voltage reference for its connected excitation system.
to the denition of , the penalty of actually represents an In steady state, VCP is at the generator terminal and IHSV C
extreme case of as setting and s, works like a voltage regulator as well as a var coordinator. Note
which indicates the most serious voltage sag. that the base power for each generator is its own MVA rating. It
can be obtained by time-domain simulation, so the in- is different from generator to generator even in the same plant.
tegral calculation can be implemented by digital summation. For a general case, we suggest that the var output distribution
Equation (2) becomes among generators should be proportional to the maximum var
capacity. The steady-state function of IHSV C is to keep the
var reserve of each generator equal, which is similar with the
(4) secondary level of the coordinated regional voltage control [11].
Particularly, if generators in a power plant are of the same size
where is step size of simulation. and equally loaded with real power in p.u., they will have the
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

same var reserve. In other words, the power is proportionally

distributed in terms of the MVA rating of each generator.
In transient state, VCP is beyond the generator terminal, in-
side the step-up transformer or even on the line. HSVC can con-
trol the voltage of VCP by properly adjusting the voltage refer-
ence of the excitation system, which next regulates the terminal
voltage and var output of each generator accordingly.
Compared with traditional high side voltage control (or
reactive current compensation, RCC), the way of setting VCP
is different for IHSV C. The former has its VCP pre-set and Fig. 3. Power plant model with VCP inside the high-side bus.
xed, regardless of the state of the system (steady state or
faulted). But IHSV C can adjust its VCP in case of emergency.
During normal operating conditions, it sets a near VCP like
traditional high side voltage control (or RCC). When a fault
occurs, IHSV C immediately moves the VCP farther into the
system in order to support the load voltage and to accelerate
recovery. Of course, once the system is stabilized, VCP will be
moved back to its steady-state place. Generally, the steady-state
terminal voltage of a generator should be within a small range, Fig. 4. Illustration of the compensation function for .
for instance, % of the voltage rating [23]. So the xed
VCP of traditional high side voltage control should not be too
far from the terminal (or the load compensation parameter is the reactance of the transformer. Obviously,
of RCC should not be too large). This, as a result, limits means that VCP is at the terminal of generator ; and
a generator's capability of supporting voltage after a fault. indicates that VCP is at the high-side bus.
However, IHSV C's adjustable VCP makes it not subject to Take generator as an example and suppose the voltage
such a steady-state voltage tolerance. Obviously, if the VCP of droop characteristic of VCP is
IHSV C is intentionally kept unchanged during all situations,
IHSV C degenerates into a usual high side voltage control (or (5)
RCC). So, high side voltage control can be viewed as a special
Then, to maintain , the reference of terminal voltage is
case of IHSV C. If IHSV C is to be installed in a generator,
given by
which already has a high side voltage control or RCC function,
we just disable the existing high side voltage control or set the (6)
load compensation parameter of RCC to zero. Meanwhile, the
steady-state VCP of the new IHSV C could be properly dened where and are reference and actual voltages of VCP,
to make the generator works at the same operating point as with respectively; is the reference of terminal voltage.
the old high side voltage control or RCC. To make equal to when is a specic ,a
The IHSV C can be used for var-voltage control in both compensation of is introduced as in (7). This compensation
steady and transient states. The shift between these two states function can keep at a high value even if is very large,
is determined by MMVC. When the power system is behaving as illustrated in Fig. 4:
normally, MMVC coordinates the var output of all generators
(7)
to maximize dynamic var reserve of the whole power plant
for potential transient state. And when a serious fault occurs Furthermore, changes along with the variation of .
and the system enters the transient state, MMVC detects the As can be seen in Fig. 5, the increment of is smaller than that
fault-induced voltage sag and has HSVCs provide new voltage of , because increases as well. To make change
references for excitation controllers. This paper mainly focuses automatically in response to the variation of , another
on the role of IHSV C in maintaining STVS during the tran- compensation term of should be adopted. In an SMIB [13],
sient state. the change of reactive current by a new setting value
As mentioned above, IHSV C maintains the voltage of VCP is given in (8):
by properly regulating the voltage reference of the excitation
controller. So, how to work out the reference value is the key (8)
function of IHSV C. The concrete formula is a little bit different
depending on whether the position of VCP is located inside or where is the original voltage reference of VCP and
outside the high-side bus. is the external reactance.
However, (8) need be adapted for a power plant in Fig. 3. For
B. VCP Is Inside the High-Side Bus , if varies, the change of should be given by (9):
Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a power plant model with
VCP inside the transformer. represents the
reactance between VCP and the generator . Here (9)
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DONG et al.: AN INTEGRATED HIGH SIDE VAR-VOLTAGE CONTROL STRATEGY 5

Therefore, with above two compensation terms of taken

into account, the control law of a generator's terminal voltage
can be reformulated into (10):

(10)

where we see (11) and (12) at the bottom of the page.

When the voltage reference of VCP changes from to
, the matrix can be used to reect the inuence of such Fig. 5. Explanation of the additional compensation of (or .
a change on the reactive current.

C. VCP is on the Line

When VCP is at a point outside the high-side bus and on the
line, the system model is shown in Fig. 6. The derivation of the
control scheme is a little bit different from the case when VCP
is inside the high-side bus.
In Fig. 6, is the reactance between the high- Fig. 6. Power plant model with VCP outside the high-side bus.
side bus and VCP. The voltage drop on is the joint contri-
bution of . To distinguish the inuence of each gen-
erator's reactive current, Fig. 6 is converted into Fig. 7.
From Fig. 7, it seems that the reactance of the transformer is
increased while the line reactance is correspondingly reduced.
In this case, IHSV C controls the high-side voltage of a new
transformer. Still taking as an example, with compensation
terms of reactive current ( and considered, the fol-
lowing formula can be obtained similarly:
Fig. 7. Converted power plant model with VCP outside the high-side bus.

(13)

If VCP is on the transmission line, matrix is irreversible.

So a compensation reactance is added for calculation, as shown
in Fig. 8.
In order not to affect the control effect, is supposed to be
a small reactance. Assuming
and , matrix is expressed by (14) at the bottom of Fig. 8. Power plant model with additional compensation reactance (VCP is
the page. outside transformer).

(11)

.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .
(12)
.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .

.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .
(14)
.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

D. IHSV C Equation of Plant Level

For all generators in a power plant, the control laws (10) and
(13) can be organized into a unied form, or

(15)

where coefcient matrices and are expressed by (16),

(17), and (18), respectively, at the bottom of the page.
To implement IHSV C, the following control parameters
should be tuned in advance: the position and voltage reference
of VCP, voltage-droop coefcients , the compensation of
reactive current . These parameters affect the control
effect of IHSV C considerably. As can be seen from (15)(18),
if VCP is at the generator terminal, and become null
matrices. The terminal voltage of generator will be just reg-
ulated by MMVC. If VCP is beyond the generator terminal,
IHSV C functions to increase terminal voltage and reactive
power output of the generator. However, in our control scheme,
VCP is not xed. It should be dynamically moved depending
on the system status so as to maintain a proper voltage of load
bus and output reasonable var from the generators. According Fig. 9. Single-line diagram of the studied system.
to Chinese Power Industry Standard (DL/T 684) [24], for
a generator rated 200 MW and above, the protection will be
triggered to trip the generator and extinguish excitation once power plant with 4 generators and a composite load. The load is
the terminal voltage exceeds 1.3 times rated value and last more fed by both the sending-end system through long-distance (200
than 0.5 s. Keeping this in mind, VCP need be switched back km) transmissions and local generators through short-distance
to avoid an excessive overshoot of generator's terminal voltage (20 km) transmissions. The local generators are located in the
if the voltage of load bus is observed to recover to its allowable receiving-end system and near the load. Their dynamic var re-
value. Since the load bus is generally far from the power plant, serve are available to improve STVS and to accelerate voltage
the dependence on remote signals for the adjustment of VCP recovery following a fault. The total installed capacity of the
will complicate the implementation of the control system. We local power plant is 1000 MW. The induction motor has a rating
put forward an alternative way. It is fullled by monitoring the of 700 MW, accounting for 50% of the load, a percentage in line
var output of the generator in real time. When the var output with the actual situation of Guangdong power grid. This concep-
is detected to be approaching its pre-disturbance value, which tual system, though simple, can well reect the characteristics of
means the load voltage is almost restored, the VCP should be the discussed CSG. By examining the voltage dynamics of the
switched back immediately. system following serious faults under the conditions of with and
without IHSV C, its performance can be checked thoroughly.
IV. CASE STUDY A typical steady state of the system is given in Table I. Under
this operating condition, the loading level of each generator is
A. The Studied System 80%, and the output var is nearly proportional to the generator's
In order to test the proposed control scheme, we established MVA rating.
a simplied conceptual system in PSCAD/EMTDC. As shown The ST1A-type excitation controller is adopted for the four
in Fig. 9, the sending-end system (external grid) is represented local generators [25]. It is the most widely used excitation
with a large machine while the receiving-end system has a local controller in CSG due to its acknowledged advantages, for

(16)

(17)

.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .

.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .

(18)
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DONG et al.: AN INTEGRATED HIGH SIDE VAR-VOLTAGE CONTROL STRATEGY
TABLE I
TYPICAL STEADY STATE OF THE STUDIED SYSTEM
TABLE II
SOME PARAMETERS OF THE EXCITATION SYSTEM
TABLE III
V/HZ LIMITATIONS
instance, simple wiring, reliable operation, fast response and
low cost. The actual control parameters from the Zhuhai power
plant in Guangdong power grid are sued and listed in Table II.
The ceiling voltage of the ST1A-type excitation controller
is very high, so both instantaneous and inverse-time limits
should be considered [25]. But the original ST1A model only
includes instantaneous limits. They are high/low limits of
regulator's internal and output voltages (see
/ in Table II). So we have additionally consid-
ered three inverse-time limits, namely [23], [25]
a) the stator winding thermal capability, represented by the
permissible stator current ( , in p.u.), which is dened in
(19)
(19)
b) the rotor winding thermal capability, represented by the
permissible eld current ( , in p.u.), which is dened
in (20)
(20)
c) the volts-per-hertz limiter, as shown in Table III, which is
provided by the manufacturer.
B. Simulations Without IHSV C
A three-phase short-circuit fault is triggered on the bus of
at 1 s and is then cleared 0.1 s later. This fault clearance
time is a little longer since modern protection relays generally
7
Fig. 10. System dynamics without IHSV C. (a) Voltage of V . (b) Reactive
power absorbed by motors. (c) Speed of motors. (d) Var output of capacitor.
clear fault within 34 cycles. However, in practice there are still
old relays in service. They might not detect or clear faults as
fast as the advanced one and result in a delayed fault clearance.
So, Chinese Power Industry Standard (DL/T 1234) [22] requires
that: for stability analysis, the fault clearance time of a 500 kV
bus should be 0.09 s if the fault occurs near the breaker, or 0.1 s
if the fault occurs far from the breaker. Although this regulation
appears a little conservative, it is strictly followed in Chinese
electric power industry. So we took this specied fault clearance
time as required.
When IHSV C is not enabled and the voltage of generator
is only controlled by the original excitation system, there is a
short-term voltage instability, as shown in Fig. 10. The voltage
of load bus, depicted in Fig. 10(a), falls below 0.8 p.u. after fault
and cannot recover to the pre-fault value. The reactive power
absorbed by motors increases sharply following the fault and
soon reaches about 5 times of its steady-state value, as shown
in Fig. 10(b). Meanwhile, the motors decelerates gradually [see
Fig. 10(c)]. Fig. 10(d) shows the var output of shunt capaci-
tors. It reduces to approximately half of its steady-state value.
Obviously, the rapid increase of reactive power demand of in-
duction motors and the immediate decrease of var support from
the shunt capacitor exacerbate the imbalance of reactive power
in the receiving-end power system, which directly leads to the
short-term voltage instability.
The total simulation time is 12 s. The system voltage still
cannot recover even if the time of simulation is extended. So,
according to the criterion of voltage stability, the power system
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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

TABLE IV
PARAMETERS OF IHSV C

nally experiences voltage collapse. The obtained VSSI of load

bus is 11.5611. Such a large value indicates a serious event of
voltage instability.

C. Simulations With IHSV C

The same fault is applied to the system and HSVCs are
switched on once the fault is detected. The parameters of
IHSV C are listed in Table IV. HSVCs automatically quit when
the load voltage returns to the pre-disturbance value.
The system dynamics are shown in Fig. 11. HSVCs are en-
abled at 1.1 s to maintain the voltage of VCP. It drives the
generators to raise their var output. So the voltage of load bus
can be restored continuously, as shown in Fig. 11(a). The ter-
minal voltage and var output of and are displayed in
Fig. 11(b) and (c). Obviously, after clearance of the fault, the
reactive power of generators increase signicantly and their ter-
minal voltages recover rapidly. As a result, the increasing var Fig. 11. System dynamics with IHSV C. (a) Load Voltage. (b) Terminal
voltage of & . (c) Output var of and . (d) Reactive power of
demand of induction motors is met [see Fig. 11(d)] and the ro- motors.
tation speed maintained. Noticeably, the dynamic variation of
's terminal voltage and reactive power output is almost the
same as 's. This fully demonstrates the ability of IHSV C to
coordinate var output of different generators in both steady and
transient states.
The excitation voltage of is shown in Fig. 12. Immedi-
ately after the fault, the forced excitation function comes into ef-
fect, so the AVR output increases rapidly. Next IHSV C is en-
abled and the excitation voltage is maintained at a high value for
a longer time. When the voltage of load bus is restored almost
Fig. 12. Excitation voltage of .
to the pre-disturbance value, VCPs are switched back to their
steady-state positions. As a result, the excitation voltage is also
restored to its initial value. In the pre-disturbance state, the ex- output no longer increases. However, as IHSV C is enabled,
citation voltage is about 2.5 p.u., as shown in Fig. 12. The max- the voltage reference is larger than 1.0 p.u. after disturbance. So
imum excitation voltage during the control process is about 8.8 the terminal voltage continues to increase after reaching 1.0 p.u.
p.u., which is actually about 3.5 times of steady-state value. Such and the excitation voltage is still maintained at a high value. As
an excitation voltage can be reached in existing practice. It can a result, the generator can provide more reactive power for the
be observed that load voltage can be restored to its normal value receiving-end power system, thus improving the STVS.
in 3 s with IHSV C. The VSSI of load bus is calculated and its Fig. 13 indicates a subtle distinction between the two gen-
value is 0.3078, which meets the previously mentioned criterion erators. Nevertheless, the dynamics are basically similar at the
of voltage stability. Since the voltages of both generator termi- time scale of the whole simulation, as shown in Fig. 12. For a
nals and load bus can be kept within their allowable ranges, no generator with the proposed IHSV C, its dynamic var charac-
protection relays (for instance, over-voltage protection) will be teristics is jointly determined by the voltage droop coefcient of
triggered and the whole system is maintained stable and intact. the excitation system and the parameter of IHSV C, especially
The curves of terminal voltage, excitation voltage and reac- the . Usually, voltage droop coefcients of modern excita-
tive power have been zoomed in from 1.8 s to 2.6 s to reveal tion systems are very small. So the dynamic var characteristics
IHSV C's ability to support voltage. As shown in Fig. 13, if mainly depend on the s of IHSV C. In our scheme, they
IHSV C is not enabled, the excitation voltage reduces when the are set to an identical value for all generators at the same bus
terminal voltage rises to about 1.0 p.u. (the voltage reference of so as to equally and fully exploit their dynamic var reserve. In
excitation system before disturbance), thus the reactive power this instance, when the high-side voltage changes by , the
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
DONG et al.: AN INTEGRATED HIGH SIDE VAR-VOLTAGE CONTROL STRATEGY
Fig. 13. System dynamics during the time interval between
s. (a) Terminal voltage of . (b) Excitation voltage of
var of . (d) Terminal voltage of . (e) Excitation voltage of
var of .
variations of reactive current and var in per unit for all
online generators are almost the same because of the unanimous
. As a result, no matter how different the characteristics and
capacities of the generators, their dynamic var-voltage charac-
teristics are mostly determined by the parameter of IHSV C, or
specically . So the different characteristics of generators
have little impact on the effect of IHSV C.
D. Impact of VCP's Location on Control Effect
Three different settings, namely
and , are used to investigate the impact
of VCP's location on the control effect. The same fault is applied
again and HSVCs are enabled at 1.1 s. Fig. 14 shows the corre-
sponding dynamics of load voltages, generator voltages and var
output. Clearly, the closer VCP is to the load, the more IHSV C
raises generator terminal voltage and transient var output and
thus the faster the load voltage recovers. If VCP is not suf-
ciently far from the generators, for instance, , circuit breakers successfully trip phases B and C of the faulted
IHSV C will exert less impact on load voltage and there is still
a risk of voltage instability, as shown in Fig. 14(a).
VSSIs are obtained for the three cases. They are respectively
11.7195, 0.3078, and 0.3014, which means the second and third
cases are stable. The third case has the fastest recovery rate
of load voltage because its VCP location is
closest to the load bus. Nevertheless, in terms of VSSI, the dif-
ference between the second and third cases is very small. But the
third case results in much larger overshoot in generator terminal
voltage and var output. So in practice, it is meaningless to move
9
Fig. 14. System dynamics with different VCPs. (a) Voltage of . (b) Terminal
voltage of . (c) Output var of .
s and
. (c) Output
. (f) Output
Fig. 15. Voltage dynamics of bus A following a three-phase fault.
VCP to such a farther position. So we suggest that VCP should
be in the transformer and be in the range of .
E. Simulation Studies on the Model of CSG
After extensive validation of the proposed IHSV C on the
conceptual system, it is further investigated through compre-
hensive simulation studies on the model of CSG. As an example,
the dynamics following a three-phase short circuit fault has been
simulated to examine its function. The fault is triggered at 1 s
on a 500-kV transmission line in Guangdong power grid. The
line at 1.1 s. However, the protection relay fails to issue a com-
mand to trip phase A, which is nally tripped by the back-up
protection at 1.35 s. The voltage of a 500-kV bus (namely bus A)
is shown in Fig. 15. Without IHSV C, voltage instability hap-
pens and the VSSI of bus A is 15.5466. Comparatively, when
IHSV C is applied to local power plants, the VSSI reduces to
0.3485 and system voltage is restored smoothly. The results
conrm that IHSV C improves STVS considerably. Based on
these positive results, the implementation of IHSV C in real
system is under way.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
10
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an integrated high side var-voltage control
strategy or IHSV C is proposed to improve short-term voltage
stability (STVS) of receiving-end power systems. As designed
for a power plant, IHSV C consists of a plant-level multi-ma-
chine var coordinator (MMVC) and several unit-level high side
voltage controllers (HSVCs). MMVC collects the reactive cur-
rent of each generator and coordinates the reactive var output
among generators. HSVCs receive parameters from MMVC
and maintain the voltage of a pre-dened voltage control point
(VCP) by regulating the voltage reference of the excitation
control of each generator.
The uniqueness of IHSV C lies in that it not only coordi-
nates the steady-date var output among generators to keep high
dynamic var reserve, but also enables the excitation voltage to
be maintained at a higher value for a longer time to enhance
STVS following a fault. A conceptual system adapted from CSG
is used to investigate its performance. Results from extensive
time-domain simulations have fully demonstrated its effective-
ness in exploiting local generators' dynamic var reserve for the
improvement of STVS. Further, we recommend that the proper
VCP should be in the transformer with being in the range
of . Based on the positive results of this study, the
practical application of IHSV C is under way.
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Yipeng Dong (S'15) received the B.S. degree from
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2012, and
is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua
University.
His main research interests include power system
analysis and operation, power system dynamics,
modeling and control of microgrid, and short-term
voltage stability of large-scale power systems.
Xiaorong Xie (M'02SM'14) received the B.S. de-
gree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai,
China, in 1996, and the Ph.D. and M.Eng. degrees
from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2001.
Currently he is an Associate Professor in the De-
partment of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua Univer-
sity. His current research interests focus on power
system analysis and control, and exible ac transmis-
sion systems.
Baorong Zhou received the B.S. degree from
Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 1996, and the
Ph.D. and M.Eng. degrees from Tianjin University,
Tianjin, China, in 2004.
From 2004 to 2010, he was a Power Planning
Engineer with China Southern Power Grid (CSG).
Since 2011, he has been a Power Expert at the
Electric Power System Institute of CSG. His current
research interests focus on power system planning,
power system stability, and control.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
DONG et al.: AN INTEGRATED HIGH SIDE VAR-VOLTAGE CONTROL STRATEGY
Wenbo Shi (S'08) received the B.S. degree in elec-
trical engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University,
Xi'an, China, in 2009 and the M.A.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from the University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 2011. He is
currently working toward the Ph.D. degree with the
Smart Grid Energy Research Center, University of
California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
His research interests are mainly in the area of
smart grid, including demand response, microgrids,
and energy management systems.
power conversion.
11
Qirong Jiang (M'98) received the B.S. and Ph.D. de-
grees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua Univer-
sity, Beijing, China, in 1992 and 1997, respectively.
In 1997, he joined the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Tsinghua University, as a Lecturer.
He later became an Associate Professor in 1999.
Since 2006, he has been a Professor. His research
interests include power system analysis and control,
modeling and control of exible ac transmission
systems, power quality analysis and mitigation,
power electronic equipment, and renewable energy