Power System Planning

Introductory Lecture
J. Fisher
Significance of Power System Planning
To determine a minimum cost strategy for long-
range expansion of the generation, transmission and
distribution systems adequate to supply the load
forecast within a set of technical, economic, and
political constraints.
 Realistic and Reliable Power System
The consumers should get the requested power (e.g.
a 60 W bulb), when they push the on-button. This
should work no matter outages in power stations.
The consumers should get an acceptable voltage,
e.g. 230 V, in the outlet.
A power system should be kept with a realistic
reliability
A power system should be kept in an economic and
sustainable way.
 The Challenge
To Keep the balance:
Production = consumption (PGen = PLoad)
Electricity cannot be stored!
At the instant a light bulb is switched on,
some generators MUST deliver the power
Whenever that power plant generator is stopped,
the corresponding power will be delivered from
another plant instead to maintain reliabilty.
 Evolvement of Power Systems
The electric power industry has evolved over many decades,
from a low power generator, serving a limited area, to highly
interconnected networks, serving a large number of countries,
or even continents.

 At the same time that the current situation should be run in

an efficient manner, proper insights should be given to the
future.

Integration of renewable energy into the system.

• Electric power industry has evolved over many decades
Complex Power Network

An electric power system is

one of the man-made largest
scale systems; ever made,
comprising of huge number of
components; starting from
low power electric appliances
to very high power giant
turbo-generators.

Very complex to manage

 THE WINDS OF CHANGE
PRIVATIZATION
state-owned monopoly could become
a private monopoly/duopoly or an
oligopoly
GLOBALIZATION
independent
power producers

Free market
Many nations are going through transitions from a
centrally controlled electric grid (Vertically Integrated
System) —with one-way delivery of power from central-
station power plants—into one (Horizontally Integrated)
that features both distributed generation and
distributed control systems based on advanced
communications, new approaches to enhance reliability
and efficiency.

Countries have updated their grid codes to permit a

smooth interactions between power plants with
transmission systems.
Power System Planning
Technical Perspectives
 Power System Operation and Planning
• Operation is the normal electric power term used for running the
current situation.

• The term planning to denote the actions required for the future.

• The past experiences are always used for efficient operation and
planning of the system.

• To plan is to arrange a method or scheme beforehand for any work,

enterprise, or proceeding.
 Power System Elements
• The main elements of interest are
Generation facilities
Transmission facilities
 Substations
 Distribution Network (lines, cables)
Loads
• The available voltages depend much on each utility
experiences within each country.
• However, regardless of what the available voltages are, it is
of normal industrial practice to classify these voltages to
Transmission (for example, 220 kV and higher)
Sub-transmission (for example, 66, 132 kV, and similar)
Distribution (for example, 11 kV and 415 V).
4
 Voltage Levels

Below 11kV : Low voltage

11kV – 100kV : HV (high Voltage)
100kV – 400kV : VHV (Very high voltage)
400kV and above : EHV ( Extra high voltage)
>1000 kV :UHV (Ultra high voltage)
Note that the magnitude of these levels vary from country to country.
Hence this system of technical terms for the voltage levels is
inappropriate
 PNG Voltage Levels
Step up transformer Long transmission line
Generation
Substation (Yonki) Example Line from Yonki to Lae

415V 11kV 415V 11kV or 25kV 132 kV

or 25kV to
Long transmission line
11kV/66kV/132 kV
Example Line from Rouna to POM
66 kV

Step down transformer

Substation (Taraka) Feeders Pole Transformer Domestic users

11 kV 11 kV/415 V 240 V
132 kV/11 kV
415 V for Heavy Industries A mobile phone operate
from a 4V battery
 PNG Future Scenario

Courtesy of J. Fisher, K. Komuna, S. Aiau. G. Kupale, F. Sakato, and S. Augustine

 High Voltage AC Transmission (HVAC)
Economical environmentally friendly and low-losses
Advantage: Easy transformation of energy between
the different voltage levels, convenient and safe
handling (application)
Drawbacks: Transmission and compensation of
reactive power, stability problems, frequency effects
can cause voltage differences and load angle issues at
long lines
. High Voltage DC Transmission (HVDC)
Transmission of high amounts of electrical power over long
lines (> 1000 km)

Sub-sea power links (submarine cables)

No compensation of reactive power necessary

Coupling of grids with different network frequency

Asynchronous operation

Low couple - power

Advantages of HVDC
No (capacitive) charging currents
Grid coupling (without rise of short-circuit current)
No stability problems (frequency)
Higher power transfer
No inductive voltage drop
No Skin-Effect
High flexibility and controllability
Disadvantages of HVDC
Additional costs for converter station and filters
Harmonics
requires reactive power
Expensive circuit breakers
Low overload capability
 Transmission Line Systems
AC DC
Maximum voltage
kV 800 +/- 600
in operation
Maximum voltage
kV 1000 +/- 800
under development
Maximum power
per line in MW 2000 3150
operation
Maximum power
per line under MW 4000 6400
development
Power System Planning
Time Horizons
Power System Studies: A Time-horizon Perspective
• The decision maker should know which elements are not available
within the current year, so he or she can base his or her next
decisions only on available elements.
• This type of study is called maintenance scheduling.
• Another term normally used is operational planning.
• operational planning.

• The operational phase starts from minutes to 1 week.

• These types of studies may be generally classified as:
Hours to 1 week (for example, unit commitment),
Several minutes to 1 hour (for example, economic dispatch,
Optimal Power Flow (OPF)),
Minutes (for example, Automatic Generation Control (AGC)).

To discuss, briefly, the points mentioned above, suppose from ten
generators of a system, in the coming week, three are not available
due to scheduled maintenances (see Figure next slide)
• The decision maker should decide on using the available plants for
serving the predicted load for each hour of the coming week.

• Moreover, the decision maker should decide on the generation level

of each plant, as the generation capacities of all plants may be
noticeably higher than the predicted load.

• This type of study is commonly referred to as unit commitment.

• A decision may be based on some technical and/or economical

considerations.
• The final decision may be in the form of

• Commit unit 1 (generation level: 100 MW), unit 3 (generation level:

150 MW) and unit 6 (generation level: 125 MW), to serve the
predicted load of 375 MW at hour 27 of the week (1 week = 168 hr).

• Commit unit 1 (generation level: 75 MW) and unit 3 (generation

level: 120 MW), to serve the predicted load of 195 MW at hour 35 of
the week.
• A complete list for all hours of the week should be generated.
• Once we come to the exact hour, the actual load may not be equal
to the predicted load.
• Suppose, for instance, that the actual load at hour 27 to be 390 MW,
instead of 375 MW.
• A further study has to be performed in that hour to allocate the
actual load of 390 MW among the available plants at that hour
(units 1, 3 and 6).
• This type of study may be based on some technical and/or
economical considerations and is commonly referred to as economic
dispatch or Optimal Power Flow (OPF)
• Coming to the faster time periods, the next step is to automatically
control the generation of the plants (for instance units 1, 3 and 6)
via telemetry signals to the required levels, to satisfy the load of 390
MW at hour 27.

• This task is normally referred to as Automatic Generation Control

(AGC) and should be performed, periodically (say in minutes); as
otherwise, the system frequency may undesirably change.
• Further going towards the faster time periods, we come to power system
dynamics studies, in milliseconds to seconds.
• In this time period, the effects of some components such as the power
plants excitation systems and governors may be significant.
• Two typical examples are stability studies (for example, small signal, large
signal, voltage stability, etc.) and Sub-Synchronous Resonance (SSR)
phenomenon.
• The very far end consists of the very fast phenomenon of power system
behaviours.
• It is the so called power system transients studies, involving studies on
lightning, switching transients and similar.

• The time period of interest is from milliseconds to nanoseconds or even

picoseconds.
 Power system
Power system planning
planning is
is aa process
process in
in which
which the
the aim
aim is
is to
to decide
decide on
on
new as
new as well
well as
as upgrading
upgrading existing
existing system
system elements,
elements, to
to adequately
adequately
satisfythe
satisfy theloads
loadsfor
foraaforeseen
foreseenfuture.
future.

• The elements may be

Generation facilities
Substations
Transmission lines and/or cables
Capacitors/Reactors
Etc.

Power system planning studies consist of studies for the next

1–10 years or higher.
• The decision should be:
• Where to allocate the element (for instance, the sending
and receiving end of a line),
• When to install the element (for instance, 2020),
• What to select, in terms of the element specifications (for
instance, number of bundles and conductor type).
• Obviously, the loads should be adequately satisfied.

• Some classifications of the subject are provided.

 Static Versus Dynamic Planning
• Let us assume that our task is to decide on the subjects given above
for 2021–2026 (six years).
• If the peak loading conditions are to be investigated, the studies
may involve six different loading conditions.
• One way is to, study each year separately irrespective of the other
years.
• This type of study is referred to as static planning which focuses on
planning for a single stage.
• The other is to focus on all six stages, simultaneously, so that the
solution is found for all six stages at the same time.
• This type of study is named as dynamic planning.
 Transmission Versus Distribution Planning
• Distribution level is often planned; or at least operated, radially.
• Figure in next slide depicts a typical distribution network, starting
from a 63 kV:20 kV substation, ending to some types of loads, via
both 20 kV and 400 V feeders.
• Note that switches A and B are normally open and may be closed if
required.
• Switches C and D are normally closed and may be opened if
required.
• A small generation is also connected to the network, as some types
of local generations (named as Distributed Generations, or DGs)
connected to the distribution systems, are of current industrial
practices.
 Loads

Loads
Loads

Loads Loads
Normal operation
A and B open
System Outage – Line goes off
• Looking at transmission and sub-transmission levels, these are
generally interconnected.
• Normally both may be treated similarly, in terms of, the studies
required and involved.
• As seen, both transmission and distribution networks comprise of
lines/cables, substations and generations.
• However, due to specific characteristic of a distribution system (such
as its radial characteristics), its planning is normally separated from
a transmission system.
 Long-term Versus Short-term Planning
There is no golden rule in specifying short-term or long-term
planning issues.
Normally,1 year falls into the operational planning and operational
issues in which the aim is typically to manage and operate available
resources in an efficient manner.
Any studies beyond 1 year falls into the planning stages.
If installing new equipment and predicting system behaviour are
possible in a shorter time (for instance, for distribution systems, 1–3
years), the term of short-term planning may be used.
More than that (3–10 years and even higher) is called long-term
planning (typically transmission planning) in which predicting the
system behaviour is possible for these longer periods.
 Basic Issues in Transmission Planning
• Load Forecasting
A short-term load forecasting, for predicting the load for instance,
of the next week, we come across predicting the load for each hour
of the coming week.
It is obvious that the determining factors may be weather
conditions, special TV programs and similar.
In a long-term load forecasting, we normally wish to predict the
peak loading conditions of the coming years.
Obviously, the determining factors are different here.
Population rate increase, GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and similar
terms have dominant effects.
https://www.matec-conferences.org/articles/matecconf/pdf/2017/01/matecconf_encon2017_05003.pdf
 Generation Expansion Planning (GEP)
After predicting the load, the next step is to determine the
generation requirements to satisfy the load.
An obvious simple solution is to assume a generation increase equal
to load increase.
If, for instance, in year 2021, the peak load would be 40,000 MW
and at that time, the available generation is 35,000 MW, an extra
generation of 5,000 MW would be required.
Unfortunately, the solution is not so simple at all. Some obvious
reasons are:
• What types of power plants do we have to install (thermal, gas
turbine, nuclear, etc.)?
• Where do we have to install the power plants (distributed among 5
specific buses, 10 specific buses, etc.)?
• What capacities do we have to install (5 x 1000 MW, or 2 x 1000 MW
and 6 x 500 MW, or …)?
• As there may be an outage on a power plant (either existing or
new), should we install extra generations to account for these
situations?
• If yes, what, where and how?
 Substation Expansion Planning (SEP)
Once the load is predicted and the generation requirements are known,
the next step is to determine the substation requirements, both, in terms
of
 Expanding the existing ones,
 Installing some new ones.
This is referred to as Substation Expansion Planning (SEP).

 SEP is a difficult task as many factors are involved such as

 Those constraints due to the upward grid, feeding the substations,
 Those constraints due to the downward grid, through which the
substation supplies the loads,
 Those constraints due to the factors to be observed for the substation itself.
 Network Expansion Planning (NEP)

Network Expansion Planning (NEP) is a process in

which the network (transmission lines, cables, etc.)
specifications are determined.

In fact, the network is a media for transmitting the

power, efficiently and in a reliable manner from
generation resources to the load centres.
 Reactive Power Planning
In running NEP, the voltages are assumed to be flat (i.e. 1 p.u.) and
reactive power flows are ignored.
The main reason is the fact that constructing a line is not
considered as a main tool for voltage improvement.
Moreover, the running time of NEP can be exceptionally high or
even the solution may not be possible if AC Load Flow (ACLF) is
employed.
That is why in practice, NEP is normally based on using Direct
Current Load Flow (DCLF).
Upon running GEP, SEP and NEP, the network topology is
determined. However, it may perform unsatisfactorily, if a detailed
AC Load Flow (ACLF) is performed, based on existing algorithms.
To solve such a difficulty, static reactive power compensators, such
as capacitors and reactors may be used.
Moreover, some more flexible reactive power resources such as
SVCs may also be required.
The problem is, however
Where to install these devices?
What capacities do we have to employ?
What types do we have to use?
These types of studies are commonly referred to as Reactive Power
Planning (RPP) and are clear required steps in a power system
planning process.
 Planning in Presence of Uncertainties
The electric power industry has drastically changed over the last
two decades.
It has moved towards a market oriented environment in which the
electric power is transacted in the form of a commodity.
Now the generation, transmission and distribution are unbundled
and may belong to separate entities.
The planner can not, for instance, dictate where the generation
resources have to be allocated.
In this way, NEP problem is confronted by an uncertain GEP input.
So, how NEP can be solved, once the input data is uncertain?