2011 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference
Matlab-based Voltage Stability Analysis
Toolbox and its Validity Check
Yanfang Wei, Zhinong Wei, Guoqiang Sun
Abstract—A novel Voltage Stability Toolbox(VST) is
introduced, which is programmed using Matlab math language,
and the features of its open source code and a complete set of
user-friendly graphical interfaces are detailed. It implements
standard Newton-Raphson (NR) and Newton-Raphson-Seydel
(NRS) convergent algorithms to analyze the voltage stability and
bifurcation of power system. The main functions of VST include
power flow, time domain simulation, singularity analysis,
eigenvalue analysis, as well as static and dynamic bifurcation
analysis. VST is a very helpful tool to understand voltage
stability and nonlinear bifurcation phenomenon. Test results of
the application of this toolbox in a five-bus system with three
generators and IEEE 30-bus test system are presented to show
the practicality and effectiveness of the VST.
Index Terms-- voltage stability toolbox; Matlab; voltage
stability; bifurcation analysis
I. INTRODUCTION
E SSENTIALLY, the power system is a dynamic nonlinear
system; the property change of voltage stability is a
dynamic process from stable state to bifurcation. Both theory
and practice indicate that the bifurcation theory is a powerful
tool to analyze structure stability mechanism of nonlinear
dynamic system. Now bifurcation theory is widely used in
power system voltage stability analysis and has become one
of the important theory tools in voltage stability research[1-5].
Comparing with traditional linear analysis approaches,
bifurcation theory is more accurate in analyzing the system
stability around critical point neighborhood. But this method
is against complex calculations and modeling difficulties，so
that appropriate simulation analysis methods are needed to
thorough study of power system bifurcation. This paper
describes the Voltage Stability Toolbox (VST), which is a
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (50877024) .
Yanfang Wei is with College of Energy and Electrical Engineering,
Hohai University, Nanjing, China (e-mail: meilaier@163.com).
Zhinong Wei is with College of Energy and Electrical Engineering,
Hohai University, Nanjing, China (e-mail: wzn_nj@263.net).
Guoqiang Sun is with College of Energy and Electrical Engineering,
Hohai University, Nanjing, China (e-mail: hhusunguoqiang@163.com).
978-1-4577-0404-8/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
flexible tool to analyze power system voltage stability using
bifurcation method.
Software toolboxes for power system analysis can be
basically divided into two classes of tools: commercial
softwares and educational/research-aimed softwares. The
former commonly used are PSS/E, ATP, PSCAD etc., those
softwares are typically well-tested and computationally
efficient. Despite their completeness, these softwares can
result cumbersome for educational and research purposes.
For research purposes, the flexibility and the ability of easy
prototyping are often more crucial aspects than
computational efficiency. On the other hand, there is a
variety of open source research tools based on Matlab, which
are typically aimed at a specific aspect of power system
analysis[6-7].
Some of the Matlab-based toolboxes are: Power System
Analysis Toolbox(PSAT)[6], Power System Toolbox(PST),
Voltage Stability Toolbox(VST)[8-10], and so on. Among
these toolboxes, VST is open source and freely downloadable.
This paper introduces the VST, which is mainly used in the
analysis for power system voltage stability and bifurcation.
The main function of VST includes: power flow calculation,
time domain simulation, bifurcation analysis, singularity
analysis, etc.
A question at the front is that the already literatures
involve VST are focused on the apply of VST itself, the
explanation in a systematic way of all theoretical basis for
VST is not clear, and effective use of the results obtained by
VST simulation is a little weak. With consideration of the
above problems, this paper first describes the main structure
of VST and analysis its main function modules, then the
theoretical basis of VST is analyzed in detail; At last, a
five-bus system with three generators and IEEE 30-bus test
system are presented to show the applicability of the VST,
the simulation results show that the tool is suitable to study
the voltage stability of power system.
II. MAIN FUNCTION INTRODUCTION OF VST
The VST integrates the symbolic and numeric
computations with a graphical menu-driven interface based
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on MATLAB and its extended symbolic toolbox. It
implements symbolic computations to build exact load flow
equations and Jacobian matrices including 2nd–order
derivatives, required to implement numerical computations
such as Newton-Raphson(NR)and Newton-Raphson-Seydel
(NRS) for bifurcation analysis. It has proved to be a useful
tool for education and research in the area of power system
stability analysis. Fig.1 shows the schematic diagram of the
VST[11].
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of VST
A. Load Flow Calculation
Load flow is the most basic and important calculation of
power system analysis. VST implements the standard NR
algorithm to compute the load flow solutions at a given set of
bus injections. The GUI for load flow calculation allows the
user to set control variables of the NR algorithm such as
tolerance, error, maximum number of iteration, parameter
values and state values.
B. Bifurcation Analysis of Voltage Stability
VST uses a three-stage NR-NRS-NR algorithm to analyze
voltage stability bifurcation; the first stage uses standard NR
method to iteration until it fails to converge. Then it
automatically switches to the NRS method to find load flow
solutions at and around the Saddle Node Bifurcation(SNB)
point. After obtaining the SNB point, the standard NR
method is switched back to compute low voltage of PV
curve.
Changes in bus injections are achieved through
parameterization of bus injections with a scalar parameter
known as a bifurcation parameter[9]:
μ = μ0 + α * μ' (1)
0
where, μ is the initial real or reactive power, α is the
bifurcation parameter which denotes the level of load,
μ ' = [d TPg d TPl d QTl ]T is the vectors of searching directions,
T denotes transpose, elements of μ' are:
⎧
⎪d Pg = [d P2 … d Pn ]T
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
g
T
⎨d Pl = [d Png +1 … d Png +npq ]
⎪
⎪ III. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
⎪
⎪d = [d Pn +1 … d Pn +n ]T
⎪
⎪
⎩ Ql g g pq
where, n is the total node number of the system, generator 1
is the swing bus with zero angel and all the other phase
angels are relative to the swing bus; ng and npq are the bus
number of PV and PQ nodes, respectively ；
Pg = [ P2 …Pn g ]T is pure active power injection vector of
ng −1 generators ； Pl = [ Png +1 … Png +npq ]T and
Ql = [Qng +1 … Qng +npq ]T are the real and reactive power
demands of npq load nodes, respectively; the elements of
d Pg , d Pl and d Ql , can be set to be positive, negative, or
zero depending on the load increase scenario of interest.
Therefore, one may conveniently increase load or
generation at a bus or at a group of buses through equation
(1).
VST adopts direct method to obtain static bifurcation
point; the direct method is proposed by Seydel in 1979[12],
which is used to calculate static bifurcation of single
parameter.
Static bifurcation uses NR-NRS two-stage algorithm to
calculate equalization points. The dynamic bifurcation
analysis identifies small-signal stability characteristics by
computing and checking the eigenvalues of the reduced
system Jacobian matrix at each equilibrium point along PV
curve. It will occur three kinds of bifurcation along the PV
curve:SNB, Hopf Bifurcation, and Singularity Induced
Bifurcation(SIB).
C. Small-signal Analysis
In power system small-signal analysis, system matrix
eigenvalues have close relations with the system stability.
VST studies small signal stability of a certain point on PV
curve by analyzing system matrix eigenvalues.
VST analyzes the sensitivity of eigenvalue nearby SIB by
the following equations:
[ J ]ε = λε
(3)
[ g y ]ρ = η ρ
where, J is the Jacobin matrix of the system, gy is the Jacobin
matrix of the algebraic equations, λ is the biggest real
eigenvalue of J, η is the smallest real eigenvalue of gy, ε and
ρ are the right eigenvector of λ and η, respectively.
D. Dynamic Time Simulation
Time domain simulation is an important method to
research power system dynamic safety analysis and control.
VST also has the function of time domain simulation. The
time domain simulation adopts an ordinary differential
equation (ODE) solver combined with an algebraic solver at
each iteration step. A fourth-order Runga–Kutta method is
used as an ODE solver, while an NR procedure is
implemented as an algebraic solver to update the load bus
voltage magnitudes and angles at each integration step.
(2)
A. Simulation of Five-bus System with Three Generators
First a five-bus system is analyzed, whose connection
diagram is displayed in Fig.2 [13-14].
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 bus 2 bus 4 bus 1
jX d jX d
G G
generator 2 generator 1
jX d Pd 4，Qd 4

bus 3
jX d
G
generator 3 Pd5，Qd5
bus 5

Fig. 2 Five-bus system with three generators

1) Bifurcation Analysis of Voltage Stability

The voltage amplitude of node 4 is shown in Fig. 3; the
lower part of Fig.3 is the partial enlarge figure around SNB.
As shown in Fig.3, when α is 3.1633 the system occurring
SNB, which is the right most of the PV curve; exceeding this
point power flow can not be converged; SNB is corresponds
to maximum power point at a certain load increase mode of
the system.
Fig.4 Voltage magnitude at bus 4 of dynamic bifurcation and singular points
2) Singularity and Eigenvalue Analysis
For a point of PV curve, VST analyzes the small-signal
stability of the point by computing system Jacobin matrix
eigenvalues. The distributing and movement of two critical
eigenvalues are shown in Fig.5 as α increasing; uncritical
eigenvalues are not figured and the dotted arrow line in Fig.5
denote the increase direction of α.

Fig. 3 Voltage magnitude at bus 4 of static bifurcation

In VST dynamic bifurcation simulation, a fixed-step size
is used at the NR stage, at the NRS stage, the step size is
changed automatically by VST according to the second-order
derivatives. The dynamic bifurcation and singular points of
node 4 is shown in Fig.4.
As shown in Fig.4, the SNB and SIB are identified as the
parameter α changing. The singular points and PV curve
intersect at SIB; as α equal to 3.0205, the system occurs SIB.
Now the stability performance of low voltage equilibrium
points has changing from stable to unstable state. The high
voltage and low voltage equilibrium points coincide when α
increases to 3.1633.
Fig. 5 Critical eigenvalues plot of the system matrix
Just before α equal to 3.0205, the two critical eigenvalues
are located in the left half plane in Fig.5, which implies
stability. As the parameter α changing from one of the
complex eigenvalue to the right half plane and becoming a
large positive number while the other eigenvalue stays in the
left half plane, but it becomes a large negative real number.
Therefore, stability feature of the equilibrium undergoes an
instantaneous change from stable to unstable. As α
increasing to 3.1633, a critical eigenvalue of the system
becomes to zero while the other eigenvalue stays in the left
half plane, now the system occurs SNB.
TABLE Ⅰand TABLE Ⅱ are the sensitivity of the system
state varieties to left and right eigenvector corresponding to
the zero eigenvalue of load flow Jacobian matrix at the SNB
point, respectively; where left eigenvector is remedial action
vector and right eigenvector is null space vector. δ, V, P, Q in
TALBE Ⅰand TABLE Ⅱ denote phase angle, voltage

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amplitude, active power, reactive power, respectively. As shown in TABLE Ⅲ and TABLE Ⅳ, null space vector
of V7 and δ7 are more sensitive to the increasing α.
TABLE I SENSITIVITY OF REMEDIAL ACTION VECTOR VERSUS α
Similarly, remedial action vector of P7 and Q7 is more
OF FIVE-BUS SYSTEM
sensitive to the increasing α, which means node 7 is the
State variables P2 P3 P4 Q4 P5 Q5 critical node of the system at the load increase mode. The
Sensitivity of α 0.1254 0.5183 0.1762 0.0810 0.4200 0.7083 adjacent region of node 7 is the dangerous region of the
system; to analyze the change of the system variables around
TABLE Ⅱ SENSITIVITY OF NULL SPACE VERTOR VERSUS α OF node 7 can provide practical information of prevention and
FIVE-BUS SYSTEM remedial control for voltage stability.

State variables δ2 δ3 V4 δ4 V5 δ5 IV. CONCLUSION

Sensitivity of α 0.1522 0.6294 0.3976 0.2139 0.6060 0.0984
Power system is a complicated nonlinear dynamic system,
As shown in TABLEⅠ, the sensitivity of Q5 to α is the its operation stability, especially the voltage stability is an
biggest, which is 0.7083. It can be deduced that adjust Q5 important component of modern power system stability
appropriately can further increase the system stability. From analysis. VST, a Matlab-based toolbox for voltage stability
bifurcation analysis is introduced in this paper, which has
TableⅡ we can know that the sensitivity of δ3 to α is the
open source code and user-friendly graphical interface. VST
biggest, which is 0.6294. The result validates the change
is very helpful to understand voltage stability and nonlinear
scheme of α.
bifurcation phenomena. The feasibility and validity of the
B. Simulation and Analysis of IEEE 30-bus Test System proposed VST are verified by simulating a five-bus system
The searching directions of injection power and injection with three generators and IEEE 30-bus test system, the
space of IEEE 30-bus test system are set. The voltage results show that the VST is a powerful tool to analyze
stability bifurcation of IEEE 30-bus test system is simulated voltage stability for power system researchers. The new
by VST, which equally verifies the applicability of VST in version 3.0 of VST and its download website is available at:
analyzing the bifurcation behavior of voltage stability. The http://power.ece.drexel.edu/vst.html
test system of IEEE 30-bus is shown in Fig. 6[15].
Due to limited space, TABLE Ⅲ and TABLE Ⅳ list only V. REFERENCES
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VI. BIOGRAPHIES
Yanfang Wei was born in HeNan, China, 1982. He received the B.S. and
M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Henan Polytechnic University, in
2006 and 2008, respectively. Now he is pursing the Ph.D. degree at Hohai
University, Nanjing, China.
His main research interests are power system analysis and its control.

Zhinong WEI was born in JiangSu, China, in 1962. He received the B.S.
degree from Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China in 1984 and M.S.
degree from Southeast University, Nanjing, China in 1987. He then received
his Ph.D. degree from Hohai University, Nanjing, China in 2004. He is now
a professor at Hohai University.
His research interests include state estimation, voltage stability, smart
distribution systems, optimization and planning, load forecasting and
integration of distributed generation into electric power systems.

Guoqiang SUN was born in JiangSu, China, in 1978. He received the B.S.,
M.S. and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Hohai University,
Nanjing, China, in 2001, 2005 and 2010, respectively. He is currently a
lecturer in the College of Energy and Electrical Engineering, at Hohai
University, China.
His main research interests are power system analysis and its control.

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