Electric Power Systems Research 79 (2009) 220225

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Electric Power Systems Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsr

Multi-criteria contingency ranking method for voltage stability

Mauricio Dester, Carlos A. Castro
Power Systems Department, University of Campinas, Brazil

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
The objective of this paper is to propose a fast, accurate, and robust method for ranking contingencies according to their severities as far as voltage stability is concerned. In general terms, the proposed procedure consists of obtaining the operating state and computing performance indices for each contingency of a predened list. The contingencies are then ranked according to their performance indices. The proposed method can be used as a real time operation tool, since its computational effort is very small. The proposed method is able to pick most of the severe contingencies, resulting in very good capture ratios. Simulation results are shown for small test and large realistic power systems. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 18 March 2008 Received in revised form 23 May 2008 Accepted 28 May 2008 Available online 30 June 2008 Keywords: Contingency analysis Contingency ranking Voltage stability

1. Introduction Electric power systems (EPS) have become very complex from the operation, control and stability maintenance standpoints. The voltage stability problem deserves special attention, since power systems have been operating dangerously close to their stability limits. Voltage collapse and energy rationing occurrences have been reported worldwide [1]. Special care with transmission capacity expansion and the development of efcient operation techniques to best use the systems capabilities is crucial. The power industry restructuring process has introduced a number of factors that have increased the possible sources of system disturbances, leading to a less robust, more unpredictable system as far as the operation is concerned [2]. The lack of new transmission facilities, cutbacks in system maintenance, workforce downsizing, unpredicted power ow patterns, just to name a few, are some of the important factors that affect the security of power systems. The mainstream philosophy of the restructured sector is to minimize investments, minimize costs, and maximize the equipments utilization. The regulatory agencies usually dene minimum voltage stability security margins for both normal operating conditions and contingency situations [35]. According to the Brazilian National System Operator (ONS), the security margin to voltage collapse required for single contingencies must be at least 6%. Under normal operating conditions, the minimum margin should be a bit larger, depending on the demand [5]. The Western Electricity Coor-

dinating Council (WECC) adopts a 5% margin for normal operating conditions [3]. Therefore, the denition of efcient operation and control strategies to meet such criteria is of paramount importance. Fig. 1 illustrates the idea of the voltage stability margin (VSM) in a very simple way, based on the well-known PV curve. Consider the load ow equations given by
s c Pk Pk ( , V) = 0, for PQ, PV buses, and s c Qk Qk ( , V) = 0, for PQ buses,

(1)

where superscripts s and c stand for scheduled (generation minus consumption) and calculated quantities. In this paper a constant power factor model is used for the loads. Nonetheless, the inclusion of voltage dependent load models is straightforward. bc and max correspond respectively to the current and the maximum loading factors, both for normal operating conditions (base case). VSM is computed from both loading levels, being a measure of the distance between them. For instance, VSM can be given by VSM =
max bc

1 100%.

(2)

Corresponding author at: DSEE/FEEC/UNICAMP, C.P. 6101, 13083-852, Campinas, SP, Brazil. Tel.: +55 19 3521 3732; fax: +55 19 3289 1395. E-mail address: ccastro@ieee.org (C.A. Castro). 0378-7796/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2008.05.023

The occurrence of contingencies results in variation of the VSM, as shown in Fig. 2. Contingency 1 results in a smaller VSM as compared to the base case condition. Contingency 2 presents a more severe impact on VSM, since its post-contingency maximum loading is less than the base case loading. This constitutes an infeasible contingency case. Of course, this analysis is valid in case the load and generation patterns and control settings remain unchanged after the contingency occurs. A well-accepted contingency analysis procedure is based on splitting the process in different stages. The rst stage is usually referred to as contingency ranking, and contingencies from

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Fig. 1. Illustration of the voltage stability margin (VSM).

a predened list are analyzed and ranked by using a simple, computationally fast method. Then, the top-ranked (most severe) contingencies are selected and analyzed in a latter stage, now using more complete, powerful, and accurate methods. This stage is usually referred to as contingency analysis or evaluation. For instance, the voltage stability condition of the most severe contingencies may be evaluated by continuation methods [6]. Finally, preventive and/or corrective control strategies must be obtained to deal with contingencies that result in insecure or emergency operating situations. The procedure just described has been discussed in [7], for ranking and analyzing contingencies for MW ow overloads and voltage magnitude violations. This paper tackles the contingency ranking problem, that is, the one of correctly ranking contingencies regarding their impacts on VSM. Contingencies with the smallest VSM are the most severe and ranked at the top of the list. The evaluation of the impact of contingencies on the VSM has been dealt with in several research works found in the literature. A crucial point related to this problem is that a proposed ranking method must be efcient from the computational effort standpoint, while keeping acceptable accuracy. Also, it should be suited for use in many power system analysis process environments, from operation planning to real time operation. Finally, an appropriate treatment for the infeasible contingency cases is also proposed. Many research works on contingency ranking for voltage stability can be found in the literature [4,8,912]. Some methods [4,9] assume that the operating state at base case is known, for

both normal operation and maximum loading condition. Some may require the computation of more than one load ow per contingency [4,9,11]. In [10], linear and quadratic sensitivity factors are computed per contingency. The idea here is to propose a method for ranking contingencies based on information from the base case and the post-contingency operating states. Thus, only one load ow is required for each contingency. Therefore, the method is intended to be computationally fast and suited for real time operation application, where decisions must be taken within a small time frame. The proposed ranking method is based on the computation of performance indices for each contingency. In their turn, the performance indices are based on the post-contingency operating state. Some of these indices include the computation of voltage stability indices, which are in turn obtained from the equations of power ows through branches (transmission lines and transformers). These voltage stability indices are multiplied by weight factors, which are based on the outaged branch pre-contingency apparent power ow and on the voltage (magnitude and phase angle) variations. They are combined with other performance indices based on the relationship between the branch current and maximum apparent power ows. 2. Theoretical background 2.1. Voltage stability index (VSI) Fig. 3 shows a branch that connects buses i and j. The real and reactive power ows through branch ij are Pji = (Vj )2 gij (aij Vi )Vj [yij cos( + ij )] and Qji = (Vj )2 (bij + bsh ) + (aij Vi )Vj [yij sin( + ij )], ij
eq eq eq

(3)

(4)

where ij = i j + ij is the angle spread at branch ij. In the case of a transmission line, aij = 1, ij = 0. For a transformer, bsh = 0, ij = 0. ij For pure phase shifters, bsh = 0, aij = 1. For phase shifters, bsh = 0. ij ij From (3) and (4) one gets a(Vj )4 + b(Vj )2 + c = 0, where a = [(gij )2 + (bij + bsh ) ], ij b = {[2(bij + bsh )]Qji 2gij Pji [yij (aij Vi )]2 }, ij c = (Pji )2 + (Qji )2 . Eq. (5) has real solutions when b2 4ac 0. Finally, a voltage stability index is dened as follows: VSIij = b2 4ac = {[2(bij + bsh )]Qji 2(gij )Pji [yij (aij Vi )]2 } ij 4[(gij )2 + (bij + bsh ) ][(Pji )2 + (Qji )2 ] 0. ij
2 2 2

(5)

and

Fig. 2. Impact of contingencies on VSM.

Fig. 3. Branch ij of a power system.

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VSI tends to zero as the load increases and the system approaches its voltage stability limit. Even though VSI was originally derived for a radial system, it will be used for meshed systems since it provides a good approximation of the systems voltage stability condition. 2.2. Performance indices One of the main points discussed in this paper is related to the denition of appropriate performance indices (PI) that reect the actual post-contingency operating conditions regarding voltage stability. Five PI have been chosen and were used in the proposed ranking method. The choice of using more than one PI is based on the following ideas. First, no voltage stability index alone is able to reect the actual post-contingency VSM in an accurate way, due to the nonlinearities of the problem. All voltage stability indices, VSI included, present some degree of inaccuracy, due to the simplied assumptions they are based on. Therefore, it is expected that a PI dened in terms of voltage stability indices would also carry some degree of inaccuracy. It is important that the voltage stability index be associated to other quantities to compensate for such inaccuracies and minimize errors. Secondly, it was also found that each denition of a PI favors the identication of certain severe contingencies. One of the contributions of this paper is to show that each one of the different PI may be able to identify a number of severe contingencies and the union of the PI may result in almost all severe contingencies identied. The denition of PI and their association to other quantities were based on exhaustive tests. In this paper, the following ve performance indices were dened: PI1 = VSImin , 1 PI2 = , VSImin , 2 and PI3 = VSImin , 3 Sl Slmax . (6)

quadratic function based on the power mismatches: F( n , V n ) = 1 T ( Sn ) ( Sn ). 2

For well-conditioned systems, assumes values close to one, and does not affect the load ow iterative process. For illconditioned systems, assumes different values to minimize the ill conditioning and smooth out the iterative process, providing the correct solution for the problem. Finally, for infeasible systems (those for which there are no solutions for the load ow equations) tends to zero in a few iterations, indicating that the power mismatches cannot be decreased any further and the best possible solution has been reached. Also, Overbye [14] showed that, for infeasible cases, LFSSO leads to a point on the feasibility boundary. These special features of the optimal multiplier are of particular interest for voltage stability. It has been used in [15] for voltage stability margin calculations. Contingencies that result in negative voltage stability margin (infeasible cases) will lead to a null optimal multiplier. These contingencies are assigned a performance index equal to zero, and will be naturally placed at the top of the ranked list. 2.4. Proposed ranking method It follows a basic ranking method proposed in this paper. A list with single contingencies to be ranked is assumed as known: (1) Obtain the systems base case operating state. (2) For each contingency of the list do the following: (a) Obtain the systems post-contingency operating state using LFSSO. (b) In case = 0, that is, the post-contingency operation is infeasible (negative voltage stability margin), set PI1 = PI2 =PI3 = PI4 = PI5 =0. (c) In case = 0, compute PI1 , PI2 , PI3 , PI4 , and PI5 from (6). / (3) Rank contingencies according to each PI, obtaining ve ordered lists. (4) Pick the top-ranked contingencies of each list for further, detailed analysis (contingency evaluation). 3. Simulation results In order to evaluate the results provided by the proposed ranking method, the following evaluation procedure was dened: (A) Obtain the post-contingency (VSM) for each contingency of the list by using some known method, as for example the continuation method proposed in [6], or by successive load ow computations for gradually increasing load until load ow solutions are no longer found. The latter is of course very time consuming, however its results are acceptable from a practiTable 1 Contingency ranking for the IEEE-14-bus, 20-branch system Order 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Branch 1 3 10 2 15 4 8 7 17 5 Fromto 12 23 56 15 79 24 47 45 914 25
max

PI4 = max

Sl Slmax

PI5 = avrg

Weighting factors i were added to the rst three performance indices to improve their accuracy. VSImin is the smallest postcontingency voltage stability index among the branches connected to the bus with the smallest base case voltage magnitude. Weight 1 is the base case apparent power through outaged branch km. Weight 2 is the largest nodal phase angle variation from the base case to the contingency case. Weight 3 is the largest nodal voltage magnitude variation from the base case to the contingency case. Note that factors i are based on relevant system physical quantities, and their variations are closely related to the voltage stability phenomenon. S max is calculated by S max = Vi2 2 (( cos ,
= (Vj2 /Sij ) [12]. Obvi-

4ZR

)/2)

where branch l connects buses i and j, and

ously, subscript l represents all branches in the system but the outaged branch km. 2.3. Load ow with step size optimization (LFSSO) All load ow calculations in this paper are performed using the Newton LFSSO [13]. The basic equation for LFSSO at iteration n is
n+1 n

(J1 )

P Q

n+1

The optimal multiplier is added to the conventional load ow formulation, and it is calculated to minimize the following

0.9837 1.3060 1.3125 1.4030 1.5095 1.6005 1.6090 1.6190 1.6660 1.6715

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(B) (C) (D) (E)

(F)

(G)

cal point of view [16,17]. The results were used as a reference in this paper. Rank contingencies according to their VSM computed in (A), obtaining list N. Perform the proposed ranking method described in Section 3 and obtain ve ordered lists corresponding to the ve PIs. Obtain list P, which corresponds to the union of the ve ordered lists (ve PIs). Dene the number of severe contingencies that must be captured (n) and the number of contingencies of list P that will be considered (p). Find the number of contingencies (k) out of the n severe ones from list N that are present among the p top contingencies of list P. Compute the capture ratio (k/n) 100%.

Table 2 Ranked contingency lists for the IEEE 14-bus, 20-branch system

The number of potentially severe contingencies is p. These contingencies must be further analyzed with more detail in the contingency evaluation stage. For the sake of illustration, a detailed description of a simulation for the IEEE 14-bus, 20-branch system [18] is shown. Table 1 shows the ranking of the ten most severe single contingencies. They were ranked according to the respective value of the loading factor as shown in (1). Note that Mvar limits at generation units have been enforced in all simulations shown here. The outage of branch 1 (connecting buses 1 and 2) results in an infeasible operating state and max < 1 (negative VSM). Running LFSSO for this contingency results in = 0, hence all respective performance indices are set to zero. Branch 14 (connects buses 7 and 8, not shown in Table 1) is radial, and its outage results in islanding of bus 8. Contingencies involving radial branches could be automatically considered as a severe one, since they may imply in loss of generation/load. On the other hand, they may also result in small impact on the systems maximum loading. In fact, this is the usual case for realistic systems. In this paper, no special care has been taken on the radiality characteristic of branches, and only their impact on the systems maximum loading were taken into account. The ranking results are shown in Table 2. The leftmost column of Table 2 corresponds to the severity order. Reference list N (obtained after steps (A) and (B) of the evaluation procedure, copied from Table 1) appears in the second column. Third to seventh columns of Table 2 show the ordered lists according to the performance indices. Each of the ve lists will be referred to as list In , where subscript n indicates that list In was formed by using PIn . The union of the ve ordered lists resulted in list P (P = I1 I2 I3 I4 I5 ). Suppose that the goal is to capture the top ve most severe contingencies (n = 5) highlighted in the second column of Table 2. Suppose also that parameter p is set to n (p = 5). The partial ordered list will be Pp=5 = I1
p=5

I2

p=5

I3

p=5

I4

p=5

I5

p=5

This process resulted in list P with 12 contingencies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, and 17) that must be analyzed further in the contingency evaluation stage. Note that the number of contingencies to be analyzed further is smaller than (pn), since there are some
Table 3 Performance of the proposed method for the IEEE 14-bus, 20-branch system, p = n Number of contingencies to be captured (n) 1 2 3 4 5 10

contingencies that appear in more than one list. In this particular simulation case, all ve most severe contingencies were captured (k = 5), and therefore the capture ratio was 100%. The shadowed cells in Table 2 show the ve most severe contingencies as picked by the different performance indices. The underlined numbers correspond to contingencies that have been picked by more than one performance index. Contingencies in italics are non-severe contingencies that have been picked by the ranking method, corresponding to false alarms. Table 3 shows other simulation results for different values of n, and p = n. The capture ratio was always 100%. The larger the number of critical contingencies to be picked, the larger is the total number of branches selected for further analysis. Table 4 shows the simulation results for the realistic 1081-bus, 1654-branch system corresponding to part of the Brazilian system. In this case, there were ve contingencies that resulted in negative VSM. Also, only about 1% of the contingencies result in voltage stability margins smaller than the threshold dened in [5]. Note that the capture ratios were excellent and the number of contingencies to be analyzed in the contingency evaluation step was kept small. Table 4 showed results for large values of n (40 contingencies). It is important to point out that from a practical point of view only a few contingency cases do result in small voltage stability margins. The idea here was to show the robustness of the method, even if large values of n were chosen. Fig. 4 illustrates the relationship between the number of contingencies to be analyzed and the total number of branches for several well-known benchmark and a realistic power systems. The horizontal axis contains the number of buses. The vertical axis contains the percentage of the contingencies to be analyzed with respect to the total number of branches. The percentages were computed with n = 5 for all systems. Note that this percentage decreases for larger systems. Then, the proposed method becomes more efcient for larger systems. Extensive simulations have shown that the capture ratios were equal to 100% for all systems assessed, regardless of parameter n. In general, the capture ratios are equal to 100% for the rst severe contingencies, including the realistic system. Also, the percentage

Number of captured contingencies (k) 1 2 3 4 5 10

Number of contingencies to be analyzed 3 6 9 11 12 17

Capture ratio (%) 100 100 100 100 100 100

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Table 4 Performance of the proposed method for the 1081-bus, 1654-branch system, p = 3n Number of contingencies to be captured (n) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Number of captured contingencies (k) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Number of contingencies to be analyzed 5 106 150 197 245 294 335 374 Capture ratio (%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Fig. 4. Percentage of contingencies to be analyzed (NCA) for several power systems (n = 5).

of branches to be analyzed further decreases for larger systems, indicating that the method is more efcient when used for larger systems. The results provided by the proposed method depend on p. Larger values of p result in larger capture ratios, however, they result also in a larger number of cases to be analyzed in the contingency evaluation step. The opposite occurs for smaller values of p. Table 5 shows results for the 1081-bus system, now for p = 2n. This table should be compared to Table 4. The number of contingencies to be analyzed in the contingency evaluation step has decreased significantly. Of course, smaller capture ratios mean higher risks as far as the security is concerned. Therefore, the choice of p depends on the cost/benet trade-off.
Table 5 Performance of the proposed method for the 1081-bus, 1654-branch system, p = 2n Number of contingencies to be captured (n) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

For all simulations shown so far one load ow was run for each contingency case. Rather than running one load ow for each contingency, the following procedure was also tested. For each contingency do: (a) run one load ow iteration; (b) in case any generator reaches its reactive power limit, run another load ow iteration. Therefore, one or at most two load ow iterations are run for each contingency. The results are shown in Table 6. The capture ratios are a bit smaller than the ones from Table 4. However, they are still acceptable. It is important to note that the method proposed in [10] is very efcient computationally, however, simulation results show that some deciencies occur for contingencies that involve generators reaching their reactive power limits. As a result, non-critical contingencies are top-ranked, as if they were severe. With the method proposed in this paper, this problem is not an issue, since generators reactive power limits are always taken into account. Finally, it is important to evaluate the proposed method from the standpoint of its utilization in a real time operation environment. Of course, computational times depend on the system size, and on the software and hardware used. However, a general evaluation of the overall process clearly shows its potential. The post-contingency operating point is obtained by either (a) a load ow, or (b) one (or at most two, in case generation reactive power bounds are reached) load ow iterations. It is also important to point out that in case the post-contingency operating point is infeasible, LFSSO prevents from performing several iterations with meaningless results. On the opposite, LFSSO leads to a point on the feasibility boundary after a few iterations (basically the same as a feasible case in a conventional load ow). As mentioned before, the other tasks, like computing voltage stability indices, performance indices, and rank-

Number of captured contingencies (k) 5 10 14 20 25 30 34 40

Number of contingencies to be analyzed 5 48 79 113 140 170 209 240

Capture ratio (%) 100 100 93 100 100 100 97 100

Table 6 Performance of the proposed method for the 1081-bus, 1654-branch system, p = 3n, 1 or 2 load ow iterations per contingency Number of contingencies to be captured (n) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Number of captured contingencies (k) 4 9 15 20 25 30 35 40 Number of contingencies to be analyzed 63 108 152 196 242 284 326 368 Capture ratio (%) 80 90 100 100 100 100 100 100

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ing contingencies, take negligible time as compared to the load ow. Experienced operators may dene parameter n appropriately small, leading p to be also small and minimizing the number of false alarms (non-severe contingencies that are selected as if they were severe). Therefore, the efciency and robustness of the proposed method associated to a careful choice of some parameters result in a method that is potentially suited for real time applications. 4. Conclusion The contingency ranking method for voltage stability proposed in this paper shows a great potential to be used as a tool for real time operation. Currently, operators need such tools to identify the bottlenecks of a system with respect to voltage stability. After the proposed ranking method is applied to a system, a relatively small set of contingencies would require an in-depth analysis. The gain is even more noticeable for larger systems. Appendix A. List of symbols

References
[1] U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force, Final Report on the August 14, 2003 Blackout in the United States and Canada: Causes e Recommendations, NERC, 2004. [2] K. Morison, L. Wang, P. Kundur, Power system security assessment, Power and Energy Magazine, IEEE, 2004, pp. 3039. [3] WECC Reactive Power Reserve Work Group, Voltage Stability Criteria, Undervoltage Load Shedding Strategy, and Reactive Power Reserve Monitoring Methodology, WECC, 1998. [4] E. Vaahedi, C. Fuchs, W. Xu, Y. Mansour, H. Hamadanizadeh, G.K. Morison, Voltage stability contingency screening and ranking, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 14 (1999) 256265. [5] National System Operator (ONS), Network Procedures: Guidelines and Criteria for Electrical Studies, Submodule 23.3, 2007 (in Portuguese). [6] V. Ajjarapu, C. Christy, The continuation power ow: a tool to study steady state voltage stability, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 7 (1992) 416423. [7] B. Stott, O. Alsac, A.J. Monticelli, Security analysis and optimization, Proc. IEEE 75 (1987) 16231644. [8] Z. Jia, B. Jeyasurya, Contingency ranking for on-line voltage stability assessment, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 15 (2000) 10931097. [9] H.D. Chiang, C.S. Wang, A.J. Flueck, Look-ahead voltage and load margin contingency selection functions for large-scale power systems, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 12 (1997) 173180. [10] S. Greene, I. Dobson, F.L. Alvarado, Contingency ranking for voltage collapse via sensitivities from a single nose curve, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 14 (1999) 232 240. [11] J. Zhao, H.D. Chiang, H. Li, Enhanced look-ahead load margin estimation for voltage security assessment, El. Power Energy Syst. 26 (2004) 431 438. [12] M.A. Albuquerque, C.A. Castro, A contingency ranking method for voltage stability in real time operation of power systems, in: IEEE Bologna Power Tech Conference, Bologna, Italy, 2003. [13] L.M.C. Braz, C.A. Castro, C.A.F. Murari, A critical evaluation of step size optimization based load ow methods, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 15 (2000) 202 207. [14] T.J. Overbye, A power ow measure for unsolvable cases, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 9 (1994) 13591365. [15] L.A.L. Zarate, C.A. Castro, J.M. Ramos, E.R. Ramos, Fast computation of voltage stability security margins using nonlinear programming techniques, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 21 (2006) 1927. [16] A. Augugliaro, L. Dusonchet, S. Favuzza, S. Mangione, Voltage collapse assessment for radial distribution networks, WSEAS Trans. Circ. Syst. 4 (2005) 699706. [17] M.H. Haque, Novel method of assessing voltage stability of a power system using stability boundary in PQ plane, El. Power Syst. Res. 64 (2003) 35 40. [18] Power Systems Test Case Archive, http://www.ee.washington.edu/research/ pstca/. Mauricio Dester received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in 2000 and 2006, respectively. He has been with Brazilian utility Furnas Centrais Eletricas since 1983, where he is currently an operation engineer. Carlos A. Castro (S90, M94, SM00) received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in 1982 and 1985, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Arizona State University, AZ, USA, in 1993. He has been with UNICAMP since 1983, where he is currently an associate professor.

akm , km tap position of transformer km (in-phase and phase shifter) charging of line km bsh km gkm , bkm conductance and susceptance of line km J Jacobian matrix k number of severe contingencies out of the n severe ones that are present among the p top contingencies of the ranked list n number of severe contingencies that must be captured p number of contingencies of the ranked list that will be considered Pk , Qk real and reactive power injections at bus k Pkm , Qkm real and reactive power ows at line km P, Q real and reactive power mismatch vectors S apparent power ow at line l S [ P Q]T ykm , km admittance (absolute value and angle) of line km ZR , impedance (absolute value and angle) of line R Greek letters ,V voltage phase angle and magnitude vector k , Vk voltage angle and magnitude at bus k loading factor optimal multiplier