Stability Enhancement in a Multi-Machine Power
System using Unified Power Flow Controller
Anirudh Dube P. R. Sharma
Deptt. of Electrical Engineering Deptt. of Electrical Engineering
YMCAUST YMCAUST
Faridabad, India Faridabad, India
anirudhdube12@gmail.com prsharma1966@gmail.com
Abstract— In this paper an attempt has been made to
investigate the best possible location of UPFC with an
objective of stability enhancement in a multi machine power
system. The performance analysis of UPFC has been carried
out for enhancement of small signal stability, voltage
stability and transient stability using power system analysis
tool box (PSAT) software. 
Keywords- Stability; UPFC; PSAT; power system stability;
CPF
I. INTRODUCTION
The revolution of Power Electronics technology provides
ample opportunities to develop new power system
equipment for the enhancement of the existing systems. In
last two decades number of power devices have been
developed and implemented and kept under the term
Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS). FACTS
devices can be effectively used for power flow control,
voltage regulation, improvement of power system stability,
minimization of losses, and reduction of harmonics. There
are two main objectives of FACTS devices which are
increasing the power transfer capability of transmission
system and restricting power flow over designated lines. In
current power market, control of active and reactive power
flow in a transmission line becomes a necessity aspect.
Entry of more power generation companies has increased
the need for enhanced secured operation of power systems,
which are facing the threat of voltage instability leading to
voltage collapse and also for minimization of active power
loss leading to reduction in electricity cost. Also the stable
operation of the power system networks revolves around
improving voltage profile, minimizing power transmission
loss. Load side compensation and system compensation
ensure the quality and reliability of supply to the customers
for maintaining the load voltages within the threshold
limits. Due to changes to the system configuration or in
power demands can cause in higher or lower voltages in
the system.
The roll of FACTS devices can be effectively used for
the control of power flows, improving stability and
reducing the system losses. The comprehensive devices
that originate from the FACTS technology are Static Var
978-1-4673-0766-6/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
Narender Hooda
DCRUST
Murthal, India
Compensator (SVC), Static Synchronous Compensator
(STATCOM) and Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC).
This paper uses PSAT tool in MATLAB to analyze the
best suitable location of UPFC for power system stability
enhancement.
To achieve good performance of UPFC, proper
placement becomes a vital task. There are several methods
for finding the locations of UPFC in vertically integrated
systems but they involve numerous complexities.
However, a simple and effective method based on power
flow analysis has been employed to locate the weak buses
in the system for effective compensation. Eigen value
analysis technique has been used for small signal stability
analysis.
In this paper, the selection of the best possible location
for installation of UPFC is carried out with an objective of
Stability Enhancement of the multi machine power system
using PSAT (Power System Analysis Toolbox) software.
II. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION OF UNIFIED POWER
FLOW CONTROLLER (UPFC)
The UPFC is able to control both active power and
reactive power flow in the system independently and
rapidly. It can control the transmission line voltage,
impedance and angle. It is the combination of two voltage
source converters (VSC), one connected in series with line
through transformer and other connected in shunt through
shunt transformer as shown in Figure 1.
Fig. 1. Basic block diagram of UPFC
 III. VOLTAGE STABILITY V. CASE STUDY

A. Basic Concept
The root cause of voltage instability is the lack of A Western System Coordinating Council (WSCC) 3
supply of sufficient reactive power. The major problem is Machine 9 Bus is considered for analysis of best location
mainly the voltage drop that occurs due to the flow of of UPFC so as to enhance the stability in the system. The
active power and reactive in the transmission line. system is modeled in PSAT shown in Figure 2 and Figure
A system enters into the state of voltage instability 3 shows the network visualization.
when voltage magnitude at a bus decreases inspite of
reactive power injection at that bus. A system is set to be
voltage unstable if V-Q sensitivity is negative for at least
one bus.
Voltage instability occurs locally but its consequences
may have a vast impact on the system. Voltage collapse
occurs due to the voltage instability in the system which
causes a low voltage profile in the larger areas of the
power system.
B. Classification of Voltage Stablity
The voltage stability is classified into the following
two subclasses:
a) Large-disturbance voltage stability
b) Small-disturbance voltage stability
Large-disturbance voltage stability is related with the
control of voltages after large disturbances such as system
faults, loss of generation, or circuit contingencies.
Small- disturbance voltage stability is related with the
control of system voltages after small and slow
disturbances.

IV. ROTOR ANGLE STABILITY

Rotor Angle Stability is the study of rotor oscillations Fig. 2. Single line diagram of WSCC 3 machine 9 bus system
of the machine. The stability problem involves the study
of the electromechanical oscillations inherent in power
systems. A fundamental factor in this problem is the
manner in which the power outputs of synchronous
machines vary as their rotor oscillate.
Rotor Angle Stability is mainly of two types:
(1) Small Signal Stability
(2) Transient Stability

Small Signal Stability is the ability of the power

system to maintain synchronism under small disturbances.
Such disturbances occur continually on the system
because of small variations in loads and generation. The
disturbances are considered sufficiently small for
linearization of system equations to be permissible for
purposes of analysis. Instability that may result can be of
two forms: (i) steady increase in rotor angle due to lack of
sufficient synchronizing torque, or (ii) rotor oscillations of 
increasing amplitude due to lack of sufficient damping
torque. Fig 3. Network Visualization
Transient Stability is the ability of the power system to VI. SIMULATION RESULTS
maintain synchronism when subjected to a severe
transient disturbance. The important severe disturbances A. Voltage Stability Analysis
are a short circuit or a sudden loss of load. The resulting
system response involves large excursions of generator For the voltage stability analysis, continuation power
rotor angles and is influenced by the nonlinear power- flow is carried out with and without UPFC in a WSCC 9
angle relationship. bus system and it is found that the UPFC increases the
Loadability of the system and thus increases the voltage
stability of all the buses of the system. Figure 4 shows the
graph between voltage and loading parameter (in p.u.) of
buses 1 and 5 without using UPFC and Figure 5 shows the
result with UPFC.

Fig. 4. CPF results without UPFC at BUS # 1 and 5

Fig. 6. Eigen value analysis without UPFC

Table I. Eigen value analysis with and without UPFC

WITH UPFC
Associa
ted
States Bus 4- Bus 4- Bus 5- Bus 6- Bus 7- Bus 8-
5 6 7 9 8 9
- - - - -
-
0.9024 0.8980 0.9263 1.0259 0.9211
0.9977
ǻ3 , Ȧ3 4± 1± 9± ± 1±
4±
Fig. 5. CPF results with UPFC at BUS # 1 and 5 11.282 11.295 11.272 11.238 11.298
11.223
9 8 5 8 5
- - - - - -
It is found that the UPFC increases the critical voltage 0.6155 0.6204 0.6191 0.6200 0.6078 0.6179
point of the bus and also the range of the loading ǻ2 , Ȧ2
9± 1± 9± 1± ± 4±
parameter. The loading parameter increased from 2.0409 7.3036 7.2853 7.2922 7.2519 7.2233 7.2365
p.u. without UPFC to 2.2695 p.u. with UPFC. Hence the vr1_Ex
-5.337
- - - -
-5.2351
voltage stability of the multi machine power system is c_1, 5.2559 5.3521 5.2385 5.3461
± ±
vf_Exc ± ± ± ±
enhanced. _1
7.9361
7.8835 7.9446 7.8665 7.9463
7.8645
vr1_Ex - - - - -
B. Rotor Angle Stability Analysis -5.4208
c_3, 5.2564 5.3418 5.2359 5.4491 5.2334
±
vf_Exc ± ± ± ± ±
Case 1. Small Signal Stability Analysis _3 7.8824 7.9437 7.8621 7.9849 7.861
7.9821
vf_Exc - - - - -
-2.0124
_2, 1.9848 1.9007 2.3524 1.9814 2.3805
The eigen value analysis is carried out with and without ±
e1q_Sy ± ± ± ± ±
UPFC device. Figure 6 shows the graph of eigen value n_2 3.624 3.737 3.0964 3.6647 3.0836
3.6339
analysis of WSCC 9 bus system without the UPFC. e1q_Sy - - - - -
-
n_1, 0.4417 0.4505 0.4499 0.4503 0.4503
0.4421
Table I shows the eigen values of the associated states vr2_Ex 9± 1± 5± 1± 8±
5±
c_1 0.8248 0.9118 0.8911 0.9140 0.8967
with UPFC at different locations. It is found that the real 0.8303
2 8 2 9 1
part of eigen values with UPFC is increased in negative e1q_Sy - - - - - -
side that depicts an increase in stability of the system. n_3, 0.4376 0.4314 0.4406 0.4730 0.4325 0.4514
vr2_Ex ± 2± 6± 8± 8± 1±
Table II shows the best location of UPFC for c_3 0.5603 0.5218 0.5474 0.3969 0.5326 0.3801
3 6 4 1 9 8
improving the damping of associated modes in the power
system. It is observed that the best location of UPFC
varies for various associated states.
 Table II. Best location of UPFC for particular associated
state
Best Location of UPFC
Associated States
(b/w bus #)

ǻ3 , Ȧ3

vr1_Exc_3, vf_Exc_3 6-9

e1q_Syn_3, vr2_Exc_3 (a)

vr1_Exc_1, vf_Exc_1

vf_Exc_2, e1q_Syn_2 5-7

e1q_Syn_1, vr2_Exc_1

ǻ2 , Ȧ2 4-6

UPFC increases the dynamic order of the system from (b)

24 to 27 and negative eigen value from 22 to 25 when
connected in the system which is shown in table III.

Table III. Eigen Value Report with and without UPFC

WITHOUT WITH
STATISTICS
UPFC UPFC

Dynamic Order 24 27
Negative Eigen 22 25 (c)
Positive Eigen 0 0
Real Eigen 10 13
Complex Pair 7 7
Zero Eigen 2 2

Hence it can be colcluded from the above table results

that the UPFC increases the small signal tability of the
system.
Case 2.Transient Stability Analysis
(d)
The western system coordinating council WSCC 3
machine 9 bus systems has been considered for the
transient stability analysis. The fault is applied at bus # 8 in
the system for time duration of 0.05 second. Figure 7 (a)
to (e) depicts the system response simulation curves of the
system for oscillations in terms of power angle, speed,
voltage and active power without UPFC and Figure 8 (a)
to (e) depicts the system simulation response curves by
using UPFC.
It can be concluded from the response curves that the
oscillations are damped out effetely and settling time is (e)
reduced considerably using UPFC. Hence, enhancing the
transient performance of the system. Fig. 7. (a) to (e) System graphs without UPFC
 VII. CONCLUSION
The analysis of WSCC 3 machine 9 bus system has
been done for voltage stability, small signal stability and
transient stability using PSAT (Power System Analysis
Toolbox) software. The best location of UPFC is
investigated based upon small signal stability improvement
using eigen value analysis. The voltage stability of the
(a) WSCC 3 machine 9 bus system is studied by using
continuation power flow (CPF) graphs. The response curve
shows that the oscillations are damped out effectively.
UPFC is a very effective FACTs device for enhancing
voltage stability, small signal stability and transient
stability. This paper has a vital scope for future studies.
Artificial Intelligence Methods like neural network and
genetic algorithm or Particle Swam Optimization (PSO)
can be used to find out the optimal location of the UPFC.

(b)
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Fig. 8. (a) to (e) System graphs with UPFC