This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRS.2019.2892598, IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems
The Effect of Suitable Network Modelling in
Voltage Stability Assessment
Seyed Mostafa Abbasi, Farid Karbalaei, Ali Badri
Abstract—In the most of voltage stability studies, simultaneous
modelling of transmission and distribution networks has not done
because it makes a system with too many dynamic and algebraic
equations. Also, voltage stability assessment is often performed by
static modelling of power systems (i.e., without time-domain
simulation and based on replacing of differential equations by
their equilibrium equations). This letter by time-domain
simulations on a simple system shows that different reasons may
cause the occurrence of voltage instability. In some cases, voltage
stability can be assessed correctly by separate static modelling of
transmission or distribution network. But in other conditions,
simultaneous dynamic modelling of transmission and distribution
networks is needed.
Index Terms—Voltage stability assessment, Transmission
network, Distribution network, Tap changing transformer.
I. INTRODUCTION
Voltage instability has been the main cause of several
blackouts around the world [1], so accurate assessment of
voltage stability is very important. Only a few papers have
suggested simultaneous modelling of transmission and
distribution network in voltage stability studies [2-4]. These
only indicate the change in the loadability limit when the whole
system model replaced by a simpler one (i.e. replacing of the
transmission network by a slack generator or replacing of the
distribution network by a load model) and time domain
simulation is often not done. Also, when the loadability is
calculated in the whole system, an accurate model is not used.
None of them mention the consideration of exiting from the
attraction region that is one of the important reasons for
necessity to whole system modelling. In addition, they do not
present any discussion about the cases in which a simpler
system model can be used.
Voltage instability occurs when there is no possibility of
transfer of requested powers to the loads having constant-power
characteristic. Tap changing transformer is one of the devices
making constant-power characteristic. This letter using the tap
changer modelling of transmission and distribution
transformers in a simple system shows that different reasons
may be for the lack of possibility of power transfer to loads. In
some cases, time-domain simulation using simultaneous
modelling of transmission and distribution networks is
S.M. Abbasi is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Rajaee
Teacher Training University, Tehran, Iran (e-mail: smabbasy@sru.ac.ir).
F. Karbalaei is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Rajaee
Teacher Training University, Tehran, Iran (e-mail: f_karbalaei@sru.ac.ir).
A. Badri is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher
Training University, Tehran, Iran (e-mail: ali.badri@sru.ac.ir).
0885-8950 (c) 2018 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.
necessary for voltage stability assessment.
II. SIMULATION AND DISCUSSION
The simple system shown in Fig. 1 is used for simulations.
The applied contingency is the outage of one of the parallel
lines between buses 1-2. Each of the two lines in the
transmission network has equal impedance. The voltage
magnitude in buses 3 and 5 is controlled by the action of tap
changers in the transmission and distribution transformers,
respectively. The dead band of voltage control is considered to
be between 0.99 and 1.01p.u. The intentional time delay for
each tap movement is selected equal to 5 and 10 seconds for the
transmission and distribution transformers, respectively. Two
capacitors are considered at buses 3 and 5. The load is assumed
to be constant-impedance type varied by loading factor λ.
Assuming that the voltage magnitude at bus 1 is constant, the
loadability limit at bus 3 varies only with transmission line and
transmission transformer impedances. On the other hand, the
loadability limit at bus 5 depends on the voltage magnitude at
bus 3 in addition to distribution line and distribution
transformer impedances. The simulations using DIgSILENT
software have been done in different cases with change in
transmission and distribution impedances and tap changer
limits. In all cases, the loading factor is increased until voltage
collapse is observed.
1 2 3 4 5
P=λP0V 2
Q=λQ 0V 2
Transmission Network Distribution Network
Fig. 1. The used simple system.
Table 1 shows the impedance of lines and transformers in
different cases. PV curves at bus 3 for different cases are shown
in Fig. 2. The x-axis is the active power flowing through line 3-
4. The y-axis is the voltage magnitude at the bus 3. The curves
have been plotted with the nominal tap value. In each case, the
voltage collapse point has been indicated by a star sign. The
used power factor for PV curves is that in the boundary of
voltage stability.
In case 1, due to low impedances of the distribution network,
there is no problem for power transfer to the distribution bus
(bus 5), provided that the voltage in the transmission bus (bus
3) is controlled. In this case, voltage instability occurs when the
requested power at bus 3 becomes larger than its loadability
limit. Therefore, the voltage collapse point approximately
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRS.2019.2892598, IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems

coincides with the nose point of the PV curve (as shown in Fig. Voltage instability in cases 3 and 4 occurs due to exiting
2). Fig. 3 shows the voltage response of buses 3 and 5 when from the attraction region of the steady state power at bus 5.
voltage instability occurs. In all figures, the solid and dotted Exiting from the attraction region and the rule of the tap changer
curves are related to buses 3 and 5, respectively. As it can be of transmission transformers at voltage instability in
observed, initially, voltage instability at bus 3 occurs. Then, distribution network are the most important reasons for
along with voltage decrease at bus 3, the voltage of bus 5 also necessity to whole system modelling. They can be explained
becomes unstable. In this case, voltage stability assessment can using Fig. 5. To more illustration, the PV curves have been
be done using static analysis with replacement of distribution drawn for the primary side of the distribution transformer (bus
network by a suitable load model. 4). These curves are related to before and after contingency. In
this Fig., the x-axis is the active power following through the
TABLE I distribution transformer and the y-axis is the voltage magnitude
The Impedance of Lines and Transformers
at bus 4. It is assumed that the distribution transformer is ideal
Impedance (p.u.) and its impedance has been added to the distribution network.
Case Transmission Distribution Transmission Distribution This causes that two sides of distribution transformer have the
Number Line Line Transformer Transformer
same loadability limits. Due to tap changer operation, the load
1 0.005+j0.025 0.01+j0.02 j0.03 j0.04
2 0.004+j0.02 0.03+j0.07 j0.0358 j0.08 seen from the primary side of the distribution transformer is of
3 0.003+j0.02 0.02+j0.05 j0.03 j0.08 constant power type that has shown by the vertical line P0. It is
4 0.003+j0.02 0.021+j0.05 j0.03 j0.08 assumed that the variable tap is on the low voltage side. Point
5 0.005+j0.025 0.01+j0.02 j0.03 j0.04 A indicates the steady state operating point before contingency.
Dashed curves show the load transient characteristics seen from
the primary of the distribution transformer. These
characteristics vary when the tap ratio changes.
The first condition of stability is that the steady state load
power be within the post-contingency loadability limit. The
second condition is to lie the post-contingency system
trajectory in the attraction region of the steady state operating
point. This region has been shown in bold in Fig. 5 (the region
Fig. 2. The PV curves in different cases. specified by OAB in the PV curve named by Pre-contingency).
If the load characteristic intersects with the PV curves at the
attraction region, the intersection point moves to the steady
state operating point and the system becomes stable, otherwise
the voltage will collapse.

Fig. 3. The voltage response of buses 3 and 5 in case 1.

In case 2, in spite of the voltage control of bus 3, bus 5

reaches its loadability limit before bus 3 does. This is the reason
of the difference between the collapse point and the nose point
in the PV curve related to case 2. Fig. 4 shows that unlike case
1, in case 2 the voltage at bus 5 becomes unstable first, then
voltage instability also occurs at bus 3 after voltage collapse at
bus 5. Similar to case 1, voltage stability assessment in case 2
can be done by static analysis too. In this case, the transmission
network can be replaced by a slack generator.
Fig. 4. The voltage response of buses 3 and 5 in case 2.
Fig. 5. Load characteristics and PV curves
The loadability limit at bus 4 depends on the voltage
magnitude at bus 3 and the impedance of line 3-4. The voltage
value at bus 3 can be increased by the operation of the
transmission transformer tap changer. The value and speed of
voltage increase should be enough to meet the first and second
condition of voltage stability. It is assumed that three steps of
the tap change in the transmission transformer are needed to
increase the loadability limit to the steady state demand (P0).
Three PV curves related to each tap change have been named
by Post-1, Post-2 and Post-3. Point K is the post-contingency
steady state operation point, provided that the post contingency
system becomes stable. The attraction region of point K has
been shown in bold (the region specified by FKL). In stable
case, the load transient characteristic curves (varied by the tap
ratio change in the distribution transformer) and the PV curve

0885-8950 (c) 2018 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.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRS.2019.2892598, IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems
named by Post-3 intersect inside of the attraction region (For
example, at point m). But in unstable case, due to the long delay
in the tap change of the transmission transformer, the
intersection occurs outside of the attraction region (For
example, at point m*).
Similar to the tap ratio change in the transmission
transformer, capacitor switching can also increase the
loadability limit. Of course, like tap changer, capacitor should
be switched so fast to prevent the post-contingency system
trajectory from exiting the attraction region. For page limits, a
detailed description of the effect of capacitor switching at
loadability limit is avoided.
Figs. 6 and 7 (cases 3 and 4) show the voltage response of
buses 3 and 5 when voltage instability is due to exiting from the
attraction region. In Fig. 6, voltage instability occurs when the
size of tap step in the transmission transformer is 0.625%. A
stable case is obtained when the size of tap step increases to
0.925%. In Fig. 7, the fixed capacitor at bus 5 is replaced by a
controller one. The susceptance of this capacitor
discontinuously changes with the step size of the 0.1 p.u. The
susceptance increases if the voltage magnitude at bus 5
becomes less than 0.96 p.u. and decreases if the voltage
magnitude is more than 1.04 p.u. An intentionally time delay
has been considered for each step of susceptance change. A
time delay more than 12 seconds leads to voltage instability
(Fig. 7).
Fig. 6. The voltage response of buses 3 and 5 in case 3.
Fig. 7. The voltage response of buses 3 and 5 in case 4.
Case 5 compares voltage responses when the permissible
range for tap values is changed from a limited range (from 0.907
to 1.093 p.u.) to an extended range (from 0.8 to 1.2p.u.). As
shown in Fig. 8, in this case, limitation on tap changes causes
voltage instability. Because, in this case, the tap value in the
transmission transformer reaches its limits sooner than that in
the distribution one. In this condition, the voltage at bus 3
cannot be controlled any more. This causes the loadability limit
at bus 5 to decrease. Detecting which taps first reach their limits
needs time-domain simulation with simultaneous modelling of
transmission and distribution networks.
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Fig. 8. The voltage response of buses 3 and 5 in case 5.
III. CONCLUSION
As long as fast operation of tap changers in transmission
transformers provides a timely control for the voltage of
transmission buses, distribution and transmission network have
independent loadability limits. In this case, the loadability limit
at distribution and transmission network can be calculated
separately and whichever is smaller, can be considered as the
system loadability limit.
But in two cases the whole system modelling is needed: 1)
If one of the transmission transformers reaches its tap limit
before reaching the loadability limit in distribution or
transmission network. 2) If there is an unacceptable delay in the
voltage recovery of one of the transmission buses. The delay
decreases the loadability limit in the distribution network. To
accurately determine the delay in the voltage recovery of the
transmission bus when separate modelling of the transmission
network is used, the distribution network must be replaced by a
suitable dynamic load model. Of course, it is very important to
be noticed that with replacing the distribution network by a load
model, the case of exiting from the attraction region cannot be
simulated because the loadability limit in the transmission bus
connected to the transmission transformer, unlike that in the
distribution bus, is not affected by the tap changing of the
transmission transformer.
In this letter, we focused on tap changing transformers and
capacitor switching, but there may be some other elements such
as distributed generation (DG) units in distribution networks
that can affect voltage stability and more works are needed to
determine their suitable models in voltage stability studies.
IV. REFERENCES
[1] Andersson, Göran, Peter Donalek, Richard Farmer, Nikos Hatziargyriou,
Innocent Kamwa, Prabhashankar Kundur, Nelson Martins et al. "Causes
of the 2003 major grid blackouts in North America and Europe, and
recommended means to improve system dynamic performance." IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems 20, no. 4 (2005): 1922-1928.
[2] Singhal, Ankit, and Venkataramana Ajjarapu. "Long-term voltage
stability assessment of an integrated transmission distribution system."
In Power Symposium (NAPS), 2017 North American, pp. 1-6. IEEE,
2017.
[3] Li, Zhengshuo, Qinglai Guo, Hongbin Sun, and Jianhui Wang. "Impact of
coupled transmission-distribution on static voltage stability
assessment." IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 32, no. 4 (2017):
3311-3312.
[4] Karbalaei, Farid, Ataollah Abedinzadeh, and Mehran Kavyani. "The
Necessity for Considering Distribution Systems in Voltage Stability
Studies." International Journal of Electronics Communications and
Electrical Engineering 3, (2013): 85-95.