1
Investigation of Transient Stability of a Power
Network with Solar-PV Generation: Impact of
Loading Level & Control Strategy
Aratrika Ghosh, Ragini Patel, Manoj Datta, Lasantha Meegahapola
Power, Energy and Control Research Group, School of Engineering
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, Melbourne, Australia
E-mail: s3559675@student.rmit.edu.au, patel.ragini@gmail.com, manoj.datta@rmit.edu.au, lasantha.meegahapola@rmit.edu.au
Abstract— This paper presents a transient stability
investigation with solar-PV generation. In this study solar-PV
generation is represented by an aggregated solar-PV model,
which is an efficient analytical startegy to investigate transient
stability of a power system. The study was conducted using the
IEEE 3-machine 9-bus test system in DIgSILENT Power Factory.
In this study, two solar-photovoltaic (PV) integration scenarios
are considered. First, traditional synchronous generators (SGs)
are connected to the grid and then the critical clearing time
(CCT) are determined after creating faults at various locations in
the network. Second, the traditional SGs are replaced by the
aggregated solar-PV system with similar capacity, and then CCT
is calculated in order to accurately investigate and quantify the
impact of the solar-PV generation. From the simulation studies, it
has been found that integration of the solar-PV into the power
system have a beneficial impact on transient stability, especially
when the solar-PV systems are partially loaded and operated at
the voltage control mode. Aggregated representation of the solar-
PV generation would not be a realistic representation, as the
individual solar-PV system response would not act on a single
busbar as represented in this study using an aggregated model.
Therefore, future studies are directed towards developing a more
accurate solar-PV model to represent the aggregated effect from
distributed solar-PV generation.
Keywords— Aggregated modelling, critical clearing time (CCT),
power factor control, rotor angle, solar-photovoltaic (PV),
transient stability, voltage control.
I. INTRODUCTION
With the increased penetration of renewable based
distributed generation, such as the wind and solar-
photovoltaic (PV) generation, the power grid is going through
a rapid structural change inflicting stability issues in the
network [1]-[3]. Although a single-phase solar-PV system size
is considerably small to affect the power system dynamics and
stability, with the increased penetration of solar-PV
generation, their aggregated response could substantially affect
power system stability [3]. Therefore, the impact of distributed
solar-PV generation on the overall system stability should be
accurately analysed. Usually, these impacts are studied and
analysed by developing an aggregated model of the solar-PV
system.
Several dynamic and transient stability investigations of the
power grid under distributed solar-PV penetration have been
reported in the published literature [4]-[10]. In [4], the impact
of high solar-PV penetration on the power system dynamics
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has been investigated, and authors have replaced the
conventional synchronous generation with same capacity
aggregated solar-PV models. The analysis is conducted on the
basis of the voltage and rotor angle stability under different
solar-PV penetration levels. However, it does not consider the
operating strategy (i.e. voltage control mode and power factor
control mode) of solar-PV systems. The study concluded that
solar-PV could have both beneficial and adverse impact on
stability. The study presented in [5] have discussed the impact
of increased penetration of solar-PV generation on small-
signal stability in Western North American Power System,
USA. In this study, two base cases with different penetration
levels are used. Authors advocated that mode frequency
increases as a function of the total generation of renewable
energy, although the damping ratio is unchanged.
In [6], voltage stability and small signal stability are
investigated for the Ontario power system, Canada using time-
domain simulations under different PV penetration levels. This
study reveals that distributed solar-PV generation is more
beneficial for improving transient and voltage stability, in
comparison to the large-scale solar-PV generators. Another,
research study conducted on high penetration of solar-PV
generation [7], has concluded that solar-PV systems equipped
with synchronous power controllers would improve oscillation
damping and reduce frequency deviations while reducing the
stress on the existing synchronous generators. In [8], various
renewable generators are incorporated to form a hybrid
system. By increasing the number of generators and their
penetration, the critical clearing time (CCT) of the power
system faults are quantified.
Small-signal stability study presented in [9] conducted
modal analysis for determining the frequency, mode shape of
the frequency oscillation and damping ratio. The study shows
that depending on the solar-PV penetration level, the effect on
small-signal stability can be either favourable or undesirable.
Also, the study recommends that when the small-signal
stability is adversely affected, the synchronous generator
needs to be kept on-line to maintain the sufficient damping of
frequency oscillations. Study results are also further confirmed
by transient stability investigation applying large grid faults.
Stability investigation conducted on various sustainable
energy resources presented in [10] reviews the major
challenges when large-scale solar-PV generation is integrated
with the power system. It also investigated dynamic modelling
and grid codes for stability studies. It is reported that one of
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the biggest reasons of the power fluctuation is due to the As illustrated in Fig. 1, the rotor angle could be specified
change in solar irradiance. The absence of reactive power against the local voltage angle (δrot) or w.r.t. to the reference
compensation in the presence of high solar-PV penetration bus voltage angle (δv_rot). When generator becomes unstable,
leads to the issues, such as voltage regulation and instability. rotor-angle will go out-of-step and varies between -180° to
Though these research studies have contributed to the 180° as depicted in Fig. 1. Typically, CCT is calculated by
transient stability investigations of the power system under conducting series of time-domain simulations while
large penetration of solar-PVs, a limited emphasis has been incrementing the fault duration until the synchronous machine
placed on the loading level (i.e. various irradiance levels), the becomes unstable.
location of the solar-PV integration and control strategy of the
solar-PV system. Therefore, this paper is motivated by the III. TEST SYSTEM AND SOLAR-PV MODEL
above limitations in the previous studies. In this paper, the A nine-bus system available in DIgSILENT Power Factory
impact of high solar-PV penetration on the distribution tool has been used for this study. A schematic of the nine-bus
network is investigated by positioning the aggregated solar-PV system is shown in Fig. 2.
models at different locations of the IEEE 3-machine 9-bus test
18 kV 230 kV 230 kV 13.8 kV
system [11]. Transient stability has been evaluated under full
and partial loading conditions and various control strategies G2
Load C
G3
for the solar-PV system.
This paper is organised as follows. Section II provides a brief 163 MW
2
8 85 MW
3 -10.9 MVAR
review of the transient stability analysis. Section III describes 6.7 MVAR

the test system model and the aggregated solar-PV model. 7 9

Simulation results are presented in Section IV. Finally, 5 6
conclusions are presented in section V.
Load A Load B
4
II. REVIEW OF POWER SYSTEM TRANSIENT STABILITY 230 kV
1
Power system stability is of paramount importance to 16.5 kV
maintain a secure and reliable power network. Power system 71.6 MW
stability is mainly classified into three types; 1) Transient G1 27 MVAR
Stability; 2) Voltage stability; 3) Frequency stability [12].
Transient stability is the ability of the power system to maintain Fig. 2: A schematic of the nine-bus system.
synchronism after being subjected to a large disturbance. These The nine-bus system consists of three synchronous
disturbances include short-circuit faults and switch events (e.g. generators, three loads, three transformers, and six
generator and load switch events), and these faults lead to transmission lines. The nine-bus system parameters are given
substantial active & reactive power variations in the network in [11]. The total system load and generation are shown in
[12]. Transient stability is defined based on the rotor angle of Table I.
the synchronous machine. During the fault, generator’s Table I: Nine-bus system generation & load demand
electromechanical torque decreases dramatically resulting Active Power (MW) Reactive Power (MVAr)
generator to accelerate; ultimately generator rotor angle will Generation 319.64 140.56
Load 315 115
increase from its steady-state value [12]. If the generator rotor
angle exceeds its critical angle, then the generator becomes A. Aggregated Solar-PV Model
unstable, and it is commonly known as the “loss of
synchronism”. Therefore, the fault must be cleared before the The solar-PV generation is represented by the dynamic solar-
generator reaches the critical clearing angle. The maximum PV model (500 kVA three-phase solar-PV Model) provided by
time the fault could persist in the network before losing the DIgSILENT Power Factory. A schematic of the
synchronism is known as the critical clearing time (CCT). Fig. DIgSILENT Power Factory dynamic solar-PV model [13] is
1 illustrates the definition of the rotor angle of a synchronous shown in Fig. 3.
machine and stable/ unstable scenarios.

δrot

Fig. 1: Rotor angle stability definition.

Fig. 3: The dynamic model of the solar-PV system.

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The dynamic simulation model of the solar-PV system is IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
developed with four main blocks; the photovoltaic block (i.e. This investigation was conducted by considering two solar-
solar-PV array), the DC busbar and capacitor model, PQ PV integration scenarios:
controller and the static generator model. In addition, some  Replacement of G2 (bus-2, Fig. 2) by an aggregated
measurement blocks were used for voltage, frequency, phase, solar-PV model to serve the same MW/MVAr demand.
and power measurements (see Fig. 3). The solar-PV array is This scenario would create 51% solar-PV penetration in
designed by an appropriate number of series and parallel solar- the system.
PV modules (see Appendix for details) and operated at the  Replacement of G3 (bus-3, Fig. 2) by an aggregated
maximum power point (MPP). The solar-PV system also has solar-PV model to serve the same MW/ MVAr demand.
the capability to respond to varying solar and ambient This scenario would create 27% solar-PV penetration in
temperature conditions. However, this function was disabled the system.
since it is assumed that both temperature and solar irradiance In each scenario, a number of parallel connected solar-PV
are constant during the time period of the fault. The 500 kVA units has been varied to achieve the same MW load served by
solar-PV system parameters are given in the appendix. A the synchronous generation units. For example, when G2 is
schematic of the active/ reactive power controller of the solar- replaced with the aggregated solar-PV model, 363 units of
PV model is shown in Fig. 4. 500 kVA solar-PV systems are connected in parallel at Bus-2,
and each solar-PV system produces its maximum active power
output (i.e. 450 kW). It must be noted that the solar-PV power
generation maintained constant during the simulations, since
stability is typically studies under for given system snapshot.
Results presented in this section analyses three different
cases for each solar-PV integration scenario listed above, and
results are presented in following subsections.
A. Comparison between Conventional Synchronous and
Solar-PV Generation
Table-II presents the critical clearing time (CCT) calculated
for both solar-PV integration scenarios when a fault occurs at
different locations in the network. It must be noted that solar-
PV system used here is operating at its full active power rating
Fig. 4: Power control loop of Solar-PV. (i.e. 450 kW) and at voltage control mode.
Table II: Transient Stability Comparison between Conventional Synchronous
The solar-PV controller is capable of operating in the voltage and Solar-PV Generation
control mode, and hence it controls the reactive power CCT (ms)
capability of the solar-PV inverter to maintain the terminal Without Aggregated Aggregated
Fault Location
Solar-PV Solar-PV at Solar-PV
voltage at a predefined value. The solar-PV system activates Generation Bus-2 at Bus-3
the voltage control scheme when the terminal voltage (Uac) of Bus4 250 440 280
the solar-PV system decreases below the dead-band (0.9 p.u). Bus5 310 1750 300
By comparing the voltage reference (Uac0) with the voltage Bus6 340 480 450
measurements (Uac), voltage error is processed through a Bus7 180 420 170
droop controller, then q-axis current reference (Iq_ref) is Bus8 250 320 240
generated after feeding through a current limiter, and Bus9 210 290 320
subsequently fed into the static generator model. The static
According to Table II, CCT has improved substantially with
generator model is represented as a current source model, and
the solar-PV integration to the network. For example, when a
its inbuilt current controller is used in this study. In addition,
fault occurs at bus 5, it indicates a CCT of 310 ms with
the solar-PV system could be operated at unity power factor
conventional synchronous generation, and subsequently, it has
mode by disabling the voltage control scheme. improved to 1750 ms when the G2 is replaced by the
The aggregated solar-PV system is represented by an aggregated solar-PV system. Fig. 6 illustrates the G3 rotor
appropriate number of parallel connected 500 kVA solar-PV angle for a 260 ms three-phase short-circuit fault at bus 4.
systems. This could be easily established in DIgSILENT Power
Factory by setting the number of parallel connected solar-PV
systems in the ‘Basic Data’ tab of the static generator model. A
schematic of the aggregated solar-PV representative model in
DIgSILENT Power Factory is shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5: DIgSILENT Power Factory Solar-PV system representation. Fig. 6: Rotor Angle Variation at G3 for a fault at bus 4.

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According to Fig. 6, synchronous generator-G3 has gone Fig. 7 illustrates the active and reactive power for three
out-of-step when only synchronous generators are operating in generation scenarios for Bus 2 (i.e. synchronous, fully loaded-
the system. However, when generator G2 is replaced by equal PV, partially loaded-PV) during critical clearing faults at
sized solar-PV system rotor angle recovers to steady-state bus 7.
value after perturbating only 6° following a 260 ms fault.
This is due to the reason that, solar-PV system voltage
control scheme acts fast in comparison to the conventional
voltage control scheme (i.e. automatic voltage regulator
(AVR)) of the synchronous generator. This has subsequently
supported the synchronising torque coefficient of the existing
synchronous machines while improving the terminal voltage
of the existing synchronous machines. Due to the fast current
control loops of the solar-PV system, it also helps dampen the
power and rotor-angle oscillations of the synchronous
machines [14].
Moreover, when Bus-2 generator (G2) is replaced with the (a)
solar-PV system, it indicates much better transient stability
performance than the replacement of Bus-3 Generator (G3)
with solar-PV systems. This is due to the fact that by replacing
G2 with solar-PV, it has resulted in much higher solar-PV
penetration in the network than G3; hence the system receives
much better voltage support from the solar-PV system while
improving transient stability of the network.
In this scenario, solar-PV model is operated at its maximum
active power rating, and hence it is important to analyse
transient stability when solar-PV systems are operating at
partially loaded conditions (b)
Fig. 7: Active and Reactive Power Variation at G2 for a fault at Bus 7.
B. Impact of Different Solar-PV Penetration Levels
As illustrated in Fig. 7, partially loaded solar-PV scenario
Solar-PV systems operate at its full capacity only during provides much better reactive power support during the fault,
very short-period of the day, hence it is more sensible to hence assist in improving transient stability of the network.
consider the partly loaded scenario. Therefore, in this scenario, This could be further confirmed by considering G3 active and
the solar-PV system is operated at 45% loading (i.e. 200 kW), reactive power variation due to a fault at bus 9 (see Fig. 8).
and hence a large aggregated solar-PV model has been used
here to achieve the same MW output as the replaced
synchronous generators. Therefore, a number of parallel
connected 500 kVA solar-PV systems have been increased to
achieve the same MW capacities replaced conventional
generators. Table III presents the transient stability
comparison between the fully-loaded and partially-loaded
solar-PV generation.
Table III: Transient Stability Comparison between full loaded and partially
loaded solar-PV generation.
CCT (ms)
Fault Location (a)
Solar-PV Solar-PV Solar-PV at Solar-PV
at Bus-2 at Bus-2 Bus-3 at Bus-3
(100% (45% (100% (45%
Loading) Loading) Loading) Loading)

Bus4 440 560 260 310

Bus5 1750 1830 300 330
Bus6 480 510 450 570
Bus7 420 420 170 180
Bus8 320 360 240 260
Bus9 190 190 320 340

According to Table III, partially loaded scenarios indicate (b)

improvement in transient stability. For example, for a fault at
Bus 4, full-loaded scenario indicates a CCT of 260 ms for
Solar-PV at bus 3, and that has been improved to 310 ms for
the partially loaded scenario. This could be easily understood
by comparing the active and reactive power of generator-G3.
Fig. 8: Active and Reactive Power Variation at G3 for a fault at Bus 9.
When the solar-PV system is partially loaded, a significant
amount of reactive power capability is available within the
solar-PV system for voltage control. This could be better
understood from the solar-PV system capability curve shown

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in Fig. 9. It must be noted that all the per-unit values in Fig. 9 angle comparison for both voltage and power factor control
are defined based on the apparent power. strategies during 100 ms three-phase short-circuit fault at
bus 4.

Fig. 9: Solar-PV system capability curve.

(a)
When the solar-PV system is operating at the full active
power output, the solar-PV system has a reactive power
capability of ±0.44 pu. The reactive power capability has more
than doubled (e.g. 0.92 pu) when the solar-PV system is
operating at 0.4 pu active power output (partially-loaded
condition). Thus, improved reactive power capability has
assisted network voltage during faults and ultimately assisted
in improving transient stability of the system.
C. Impact of Control Strategy of the Solar-PV System
Typically, the majority of the single-phase solar-PV systems
are operated at unity power factor and do not offer voltage
control support to the network. However, modern inverters can
(b)
operate at voltage control mode, and in future voltage control
is likely to be mandated for solar-PV inverters [15]. In Fig. 10: Comparison of voltage and power factor control strategies for a fault
at bus 4; (a) Rotor angle-G3, (b) bus-3 voltage.
previous scenarios, the solar-PV system is operating in voltage
control mode, and hence it has contributed positively to In Fig 10, it is clearly seen that both the rotor angle of G3
transient stability improvement. Therefore, the intention of this and bus 3 voltage, are stable with the voltage control strategy,
section is to compare the voltage control strategy with the whereas, when operating at the PF control strategy the
power factor (PF) control strategy for the solar-PV system. synchronous generator-G3 becomes unstable for a 100 ms
Table IV presents the transient stability comparison between three-phase short-circuit fault at bus 4. Therefore, it can be
the voltage and power factor (operating at unity power factor) confirmed that voltage control strategy improves CCT, and
control strategies for the aggregated solar-PV system. It must hence the transient stability in comparison to the PF control
be noted that the aggregated solar-PV system is operating at strategy.
the partially loaded condition at the investigated scenarios in
Table IV. V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
Table IV: Transient Stability Comparison between Voltage Controlled and In this paper, the transient stability of the power system was
Power Factor Controlled Solar-PV Generation
CCT (ms)
evaluated using an aggregated solar-PV model under different
Fault Location Voltage PF Voltage PF loading levels, penetration levels and control strategies.
Control Control Control Control Simulation results confirmed that the solar-PV integration
Strategy- Strategy- Strategy- Strategy- could improve the transient stability of the power grid. In
Bus 2 Bus 2 Bus-3 Bus 3
Bus4 560 60 310 170 particular, when the solar-PV systems are partially loaded and
Bus5 1830 80 330 200
operated at voltage control mode, they have substantially
Bus6 510 80 570 250 improved the transient stability due to increased reactive
Bus7 420 140 180 160 power capability and fast response. However, if they operate at
Bus8 360 100 260 240 constant power factor mode transient stability has worsened.
Bus9 190 70 340 310 The aggregated solar-PV model is not a realistic
According to Table IV, when the aggregated solar-PV representation of the distributed solar-PV generation since the
system is operated at the power factor control strategy it has voltage control schemes are implemented locally and will
detrimentally affected the transient stability. For example, impact the high voltage busses in a different manner.
when a fault occurs at Bus-4, voltage control strategy has Therefore, in future studies a realistic distribution feeder
indicated a CCT of 560 ms for the solar-PV system at Bus 2, comprised of solar-PV generation will be considered for
and that has decreased to 60 ms when operated at the power transient stability studies and subsequently, the aggregated
factor control mode. Fig. 10 illustrates the voltage and rotor model will be tuned to replicate the same effect as the
distributed solar-PV generation.

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