256
1, February 1999
Voltage Stability Contingency Screening and Ranking
E. Vaahedi C. Fuchs W.Xu' Y. Mansour
Senior Member Member Senior Member Fellow
B.C. Hydro
Burnaby, Canada
ABSTRACT - The objective of contingency screening and
ranking function is to shortlist a specified number of critical
contingencies from a large list of credible contingencies and
rank them according to their severity. This paper summarizes
the work conducted as part of the EPRIA3.C. Hydro on-line
voltage stability project in developing a Contingency
Screening and Ranking (CS&R) module. The two methods of
Reactive Support Index (RSI) and Iterative Filtering are
derived in this paper and tested on the large scale systems of
B.C. Hydro and another Major Unnamed Utility. The results
obtained indicate that RSI on its own or in combination with
the Iterative Filtering method can be used for CS&R
depending on the acceptable level of misranking. The RSI
method is a very fast and powerful CS&R method and is
suggested for systems where some misclassification of
contingencies can be tolerated. On the other hand, for
systems where an exact list of critical contingencies is
intended, then the Iterative Filtering method can be used for
screening complemented with another method like RSI for
ranking. The latter technique is being integrated in the
EPRU6.C. Hydro On-line Voltage Stability tool.
Keywords: Voltage Stability, Contingency, Screening,
Ranking
1- Introduction
Currently many utilities perform off-line studies to determine
voltage stability margin and control actions necessary to
ensure stability for a restricted set of system conditions.
These results are then compiled into a look-up table for use
by the system operators. This approach has the following
drawbacks:
0 significant amount of off-line analysis
e Iimited number of considered operating conditions
0 limited number of considered contingencies
limited or no information on remedial actions
In light of the importance of voltage stability to system
afid the short-cominge of the
pe~fol-fnafice off-line methods.
there exists a strong need for a full-function on-line voltage
stability method. EPRUB.C. Hydro On-line Voltage Stability
PE-002-PWRS-0-10-1997 A paper recommended and approved by
the IEEE Power System Operations Committee of the IEEE Power
EngineeringSociety for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Power
Systems. Manuscript submitted April 25, 1997; made available for
printing October 21, 1997.
0885-8950/99/$10.00 0 1997 IEEE
IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 14, No.
H. Hamadanizadeh G. K. Morison
Member
Powertech Labs. Inc
Surrey, Canada
project was initiated to address the above needs with the
following basic functions:
* contingency screening and ranking
secure region determination
remedial action determination
The contingency screening and ranking function has the
objective of short-Iisting an operator specified number of
critical contingencies from a large list of credible
contingencies and rank them according to their severity.
The majority of the relevant papers have attempted to obtain
a faster method for voltage stability margin calculation [ 1, 3-
81. Reference [l] uses two operating conditions to estimate
the margin. While the method is fast and the results presented
in the paper give proper ranking for the contingencies, the
actual margins calculated have relatively noticeable errors.
Reference [2] investigated the problem using the concept of
equivalenced one-branch system. While the method may
work for radial systems, technically, it is not applicable to
practical systems. Reference [ 5 ] computes approximate
margin to voltage collapse using voltage gradients
determined at a point on the stable equilibrium branch of the
voltage versus stress curve and at the corresponding point on
the unstable equilibrium branch. The margin is a first order
approximation of the voltage stability margin. The basis of
this method is that in a heavily loaded power system, there
exist two very close load flow solutions with the same stress
value but one with higher voltage solutions than the other.
However, test results obtained in reference [l] showed that
the accuracy of the method is not very satisfactory.
Reference [7] proposed a test function method for the
estimation of critical stress level. The test function is
essentially derived from a linear approximation of the PV
curve. Accuracy of the results, as observed by reference [l]
are not acceptable. A second order approximation of the QV
is proposed in reference [SI. This method is further extended
to the PV curve case as well [ 11 .
Another diiejorion of oonringeiioy swlsirtion rrurwrh is to ' ~ 1 s ~
indices for contingency ranking. There are two different
types of indices proposed for this purpose; a) structural
indices and b) physical indices. The 'structural indices are
A "
those which use indices derived from system models
indicating singular value decomposition ll. The
physical indices are those which take advantage of Some
system quantities for measuring their closeness to voltage
instability. Reference [9] suggests to use the total reactive
* Presently with the University of Alberta
 257

power generation of a system as an index and develops
linearized methods to determine the sensitivity of the reactive
power with respect to system disturbances. Similarly,
reference [12] introduces an index based on the change of the
generated reactive power as well as the sensitivity of reactive
load to voltage. A similar concept was developed [ 131 where
an index based on generator reactive power output was
proposed to measure the severity of contingencies. Also an
index based on the derivative of the total reactive power to
the active and reactive components of loads at different buses
has been suggested [l 11.
In the following sections, the new methods derived here for
CS&R are discussed together with their test results on the
systems of B.C. Hydro and another major unnamed utility.
This method was later substituted by another similar method
named Reactive Support Index (RSI) which proved to have a
better performance (accuracy, speed and implementation
ease) than RCI. Due to space limitations, no results will be
given here for the RCI method.
The Reactive Support Index is also based on the premise of
defining the severity index, for a contingency, as the extra
amount of reactive generation required to get from the
normal case nose to the contingency nose. Unlike the RCI
index which needed artificial reactive sources at load buses,
the Reactive Support Index is defined as the extra amount of
reactive generation from all the existing dynamic VAr
devices (generation, SVC, etc.). To establish the extra
reactive generation the reactive limits at the dynamic VAr
devices are ignored (Figure 2)

2.0 Reactive Support Index

Reactive Gen. after
Pre-contingency Contingency ;Open Limits
This method evolved from the severity indices based on
\ /
reactive generation [1,2] as well as an earlier method
developed in this prqiecc at B.C. Hydro called Reactive
Compensation Index (RCI) described here briefly. The RCI
method is based on the premise that the distance between the \ r=..
normal case (pre-contingency) nose and the contingency
case nose can be approximated by the total reactive injection Contingency
required at the load bwes to establish similar voltage levels
for both cases (Figure 1 ). In order to implement this method
\ :.
the following steps needed to be followed:
-e--.
_ _ _ - - ----
-
Reactive Gen
0 Obtain a basecase the nose of the normal case or a very ________------ Basecase Nose
stressed case close I O it
Add artificial synchronous condensers at the load buses
with voltage settings equal to the load bus voltage value
Apply the contingency
I Figure 2: Reactive Support Index
Q

I Solve the load flow, establish the reactive output of the

The RSI is computed as follows:
1 artificial condenser!;
Define RCI as:
0 Obtain a basecase reflecting the nose of the normal case
e or a very stressed case close to the nose.
RCI, = C m ,
J=1
QYl (1) Implement the contingency
0 Solve with the dynamic reactive devices limits open
where RCI, is the relative RCI index for contingency i,
Q,,” is the reactive power generation at the artificial Define RSI as:
dynamic Var resource added at the load bus j, I is the
total number of the load buses and m, is the weighting
factor for the Var resource at load bus J.
where RSI, 1s the relative RSI index for contingency
1, QY and QYlo are the reactive generation of the jth
RCI Index dynamic VX device in the pre-contingency case and
after contingency i with open reactive limits respectively
, g 1s the total number of the dynamic Var devices, m, is

Contingency) Basecase the weighting factor for the 1 th dynamic Var resource
and p is a factor reflecting the order of the index for
removing the masking effect.

In our implementation of RSI, the best results were obtained

I for p=l and normalization of the reactive generation at
different units based on their Qmax; if the Qmax was zero
Figure 1: BC Hydro RCI Index the unit’s MVA was used instead.
 258
2.2 Studv Results reference. Similar results were also obtained for the other
system.
2.2.1 Studv Systems
2.2.3 RSI Results
The B.C. Hydro and another major power systems which
exhibit completely different characteristics were used as the The RSI method was used to screen and rank the
test systems for this project. The particulars of the system contingencies for the systems of B.C. Hydro and, another
basecases used are given in Table 1. The contingencies major utility. To obtain the RSI, the 80% stressed basecases
considered in these systems were all branches with voltages of the normal systems were used. Figures 4 and 5 compare
higher than 100 kV. the performance of normalized RSI against X-Stress results.
The scaling described in Section 2.2.2 was used here for
Basecase Details 1 BCHydro I AMajor Utility plotting the results. Also, a value of zero was assigned to
any contingency which could not be solved.

These figures indicate that the RSI method closely follows,

with some noise, the pattern of exact margin calculations.
Table 1: BCH and unnamed utility Power System Statistics This success is owed to the fact that RSI and RCI methods
both take into account the stress pattern by starting from the
nose (or very close to it) of the normal case.

To assess the perfbrmance of the screening and ranking

methods, the voltagd stability margin of all the contingencies 1.4 T
1'
1
were first obtained using a repetitive load flow method. p
Contingencies were then ranked based on their voltage
stability margins. This ranking is used as a reference for
measuring the accuracy of other techniques. Figures 3 shows
the ranking of all selected system contingencies for the B.C.
Hydro system based on S-Stress (increasing P and Q of a
load bus in proportion to the bus MVA) and X-Stress
(increasing only the Q of a load bus in proportion to the bus I- X-Stress I
MVA). The contingencies used were those over 100 kV (670 . . Normalized RSI
for B.C. Hydro and 202 for the other one). The X-axis in ,: 1
0 I I I 1 I I I I I I I I I I I I1 I I+ H I I I I I I I I H I I I I I I- I I- I I
these figures are contingency numbers sorted according to
the S-Stress values. The Y-axis corresponds to the
normalized value of voltage stability margin. The scaling of
Y-axis is such that zero value corresponds to the most critical
contingency (lowest stability margin) whereas "1 .O' Figure 4: BC Hydro Normalized RSI Index
corresponds to the base case margin without any
contingency.

I I

2 0.41
. . - - Normalized RSI

0.2
El S-Stress

I I

Figure 5: Normalized RSI Index for unnamed utility

I These results also indicate that this method misclassifies
Figure 3: BC Hydro X-Stress Versus S-Stress some local contingencies which need small reactive support
as opposed to system-wide voltage problems requiring large
reactive support. Close examination of the results indicate
The results indicate that the S and X-Stress rankings are very that out of the 20 most critical contingencies RSI
similar and any of the two can be used interchangeably as a misclassifies 6 for B.C. Hydro and 3 for the other system.

While this may be acceptable for many systems, it was
decided to devise other methods which can identify exactly
an operator specified number (e.g. 20) of the most critical
contingencies. The method derived in the following section
addresses this requirement.
In these studies, the best results were obtained when p=l and
the weighting factors equal to the inverse of the Qmax.
However, it should be noted that the variation of these
parameters should not be expected to eliminate the
misclassifications cotnpletely because of the algorithm
intrinsic approximation in calculating the voltage stability
margin.
3.0 Exact Screening Using Iterative Filtering
3.1 Theorv
Figure 6 shows a series of QV curves for post-contingency
systems relative to the QV curve representing the base case
with no outage. The closer the post-contingency Q-curve to
the normal curve, the less severe the contingency. Vice versa,
the farther the post-contingency Q-curve to the left of the
normal curve, the mora severe the contingency. Based on this
argument, the area can be arbitrarily divided into four
segments of Very Mild, Mild, High and Very High
indicating the degree of severity of contingencies falling in
these segments.
In Figure 6, to identify Very Mild contingencies, a stressed
loadflow corresponding to the normal case at point C should
be solved for different contingencies. Only the loadflows
corresponding to Very Mild contingencies will solve because
those are the ones which their QV curves cross the vertical
line representing the loading at point C. If the ones that do
not solve are solved using the stressed loadflow
corresponding to normal case at point B, then only Mild
ones will solve and so on. So given a pre-contingency case
with a particular stress level, there will be a unique group of
contingencies that should not be able to solve. Moreover as
one raises the stress level, the number of unsolvable
contingency cases will rise. This fact can be used as the basis
for filtering the contingencies.
V The Iterative Filtering method described above was used to
Basecase
Very High High Mild Very Mild
Severitv
Figure 6: Iterative Filtering
The key question in this algorithm is to come up with a
particular stressed basecase which can exactly filter out an
operator specified number n (e.g. n=20) of the most critical
259
contingencies. To find that particular stressed loadflow, an
initial pre-contingency stressed case is started with and the
number of unsolved loadflows are noted. This is repeated for
another stressed point and the iterative process continues
using interpolation (extrapolation) until the exact number is
arrived at within the acceptable tolerance. It should be noted
that, in general, the majority of contingencies are in the Very
Mild category and hence, after the first iteration, the number
of loadflows to be solved are significantly less than the
original number of contingencies. The implementation steps
for the method are given below:
1. Use the normal basecase loadflow (0% stressed case) to
obtain the normal case nose (100% stressed case).
2. Obtain an m,% stressed case (start with a very high initial
value, e.g. m,=90%).
3. Solve the case with all unsolved credible contingencies
from previous iteration and establish d, where d, is the
number of contingencies for which the loadflows do not
solve in iteration number i.
4. If n-t<dl<n+t then stop otherwise go to 5 where n is the
specified number of most critical contingencies needed
and t is the tolerance.
5. Modify m, to ml+Ami where Ami is obtained by
interpolation (extrapolation) of the last two values as
given below. In the first iteration a fixed value (e.g.-
10%)will be used for Ami.
-
Am,= (n-di)-(mi-mi.J4didi.J (3)
6. Repeat the process from step 2.
This algorithm is very general in that it finds the user defined
number (n) of the most critical contingencies for the stress
method of choice. For example, depending on the stress
method of choice (Q, X or MVA), step 1 and 2 should be
adjusted correspondingly. The results obtained will be exact.
Also from a theoretical viewpoint, there will not be any
misclassifications between the groups established by this
method including the final group of the critical contingencies.
3.2 Tests of Iterative Filtering
screen out the 20 most critical contingencies for the systems
of BC Hydro and the other system.
Table 2 shows the results for the B.C. Hydro system. This
table indicates that starting with a 90% stressed case in the
first iteration, out of 670 contingencies 87 do not solve. From
this 87, 50 contingencies solve in the second iteration until
iteration number 5 where the number of unsolved
contingencies is 24. The tolerance used here was 5. It is
interesting to note that the total number of loadflow solutions
required in this case is 853 which is 1.27 times the total
number of contingencies (670).
Unsolved
50 37
3 I 76.6 I 37 I32
4 I 68.5 I 32 15 I27
Table 2: Iterative Filtering Results for the B.C. Hydro System
260
Table 3 presents the screening results of the Iterative Filtering The results of the combined screening and ranking on the
method for the other system. In this case in total, 401 systems of B.C. Hydro and the unnamed utility are shown in
loadflows were required to get the final list of 18 critical Figures 7 and 8. As these figures show the results are very
contingencies which is 1.98 times the total number of close to the reference curves and there are no
contingencies (202) . misclassifications of critical contingencies.

I Iter. I % I No. of LF I No. of LF I No. of LF I 4.0 Computation Reauirements

The RSI method requires determining the nose point, which

is used for all contingencies, and one loadflow solution per
contingency. Therefore, the total computation requirement is
4 1 85.38 I 50 I 45 5 equal to (n+c) times the computation requirement of a single
5 I
86.5 1 45 27 18 I loadflow where n is the number of contingencies and c is the
Table 3: Iterative Filtering Results for the Other System number of loadflows to calculate the nose of the normal case.
For practical systems this ratio is very close to one. For
3.3 Test of Combined Screening and Ranking example, for the systems of B.C. Hydro and the unnamed
utility, this value was 1.01 and 1.02 respectively, Le. one
The iterative screening method described above was loadflow per contingency.
combined with the RSI method to screen and rank
contingencies. In each iteration of screening method only For Iterative Filtering method, the test results presented in
those contingencies which are solved are ranked based on Tables 2 and 3 indicate a total of 895 loadflows for the B.C.
RSI method by assessing the shift in reactive generation of Hydro system and 411 for the other system. These figures
the dynamic VAr devices. Also at the end of the process, the include 10 loadflows for the normal case nose point
remaining unsolved contingencies are ranked using RSI. calculation and intermediate stressed loadflow calculations.
These requirements translate into 1.33 load flows per
contingency for BC Hydro and 2.02 for the other system.

1.2 I 5.0 Conclusions

In this report two new techniques were derived for voltage

stability contingency screening and ranking; Reactive
Support Index (RSI) and Iterative Filtering method.

X-Stress I The RSI method uses the system normal nose point and ranks
0.2 -

0
I
I - - - - Iterative 1
I I I I I I II I I 1 I I I I 1 I I I 1 I+ I 1 I II I I1 I I I I I I 1 I I1 I I I I I I I1 j I I I I I I I1 I I t
contingencies based on the extra reactive injections required
at dynamic reactive devices to get a loadflow solution . The
'I/ ~ ~ ~

test results on the systems of B.C. Hydro and the unnamed

-b"W b " ? b c 3 o ) L o
w o ) c $ z b N a z o l o m ~ utility showed that this method performs a very good job of
N N c r ) m v b W " a
Contingencies screening and ranking contingencies with a computation
overhead of about one loadflow per contingency with a
Figure 7: BC Hydro Iterative Filtering capture ratio of about 70%.

To ensure that no critical contingencies are misclassified, the

T Iterative Filtering method was devised. In this method an
analytical algorithm is used to screen the coniingencies down
to the critical number required. The beauty of the Iterative
Filtering method is that it can be applied to any stress method
(Q, X or MVA) by applying proper stressing method to the
loadflows used within the algorithm. Theoretically, there
cannot be any misclassifications in the critical contingencies
obtained. This was confirmed by the tests conducted on the
systems of B.C. Hydro and another major utility with 100%
capture ratio with speed of between 1.3 to 2.02 loadflows per
contingency. Logically the Iterative Filtering method can be
combined with the RSI for screening and ranking.

The final recommendation of this paper is that RSI on its

Figure 8: Iterative Filtering Index for the Other System own or in combination with the Iterative Filtering method can

be used for CS&R dcpending on the acceptable level of
misranking. The RSI method is a very fast and powerful
CS&R method and is suggested for systems where some
misclassification of local contingencies can be tolerated. On
the other hand, for systems where an exact list (very high
capture ratio, e.g. 100%)of critical contingencies is intended,
the iterative Filtering method can be used for screening
complemented by another method like RSI for ranking. The
latter technique is being integrated in the EPRID3.C. Hydro
On-line Voltage Stability tool.
Both the RSI method and the Iterative Filtering method
presented here are hased on loadflow solutions. The
efficiency of the algorithms can be further enhanced using
many advancements of static CS&R methods [ 14,151.
6.0 Acknowledgment
The work reported in this project was partially supported by
the Electric Power Research Institute. The discussions and
comments of the project manager Mr. D. Maratukulam is
gratefully acknowledged.
7.0 References
1. G.C. Ejebe, G.D Irisarri, S. Mokhtari, O.Obadina,
P.Ristanovic, J.Tong, “Methods for Contingency
Screening and Ranking for Voltage Stability Analysis of
Power Systems”, IBEE Trans. on Power Systems Vol. 11
No.1. Feb 1996
2. G.B. Jasmon, L.H.C.C. Lee, “New contingency ranking
technique incorporating a voltage stability criterion”,
IEEE Proceedings-C, Vol. 140. No.2. March 1993.
3. V. Ajjarapu and C. Christy, “The Continuation Power
Flow: A Tool for Steady State Voltage Stability
Analysis,” IEEE T-PS, Vol. 7 No.1, Feb.1992
4. H.D. Chiang, A.J. Flueck, K.S. Shah and N. Balu,
“CPFLOW: A Practical Tool for Tracing Power System
Steady-State Stationary Behavior Due to Load and
Generation Varial.ions,” IEEEPES 94 WM 244-4
PWRD, New York, NY, Jan 30 - Feb 4.1994.
5. A. Yokoyama and Y. Sekine, “A Static Voltage Stability
Index Based on Multiple Load Flow Solutions,” Proc. of
the Bulk Power System Voltage Phenomena-Voltage
Stability and Security, Potosi, Missouri, Jan. 1989.
6. H.D. Chiang and R.Jean-Jumeau, “Toward a Practical
Performance Index. for Predicting Voltage Collapse In
Electric Power Systems,” IEEEPES 93 SM 512-4
PWRS Vancouver, BC July 18-22. 1993.
7. T. Van Cutsem, Y Jacquemart, J.-N. Marquet, P.Pruvot.
“A comprehensive analysis of mid-term voltage
stability”, Paper No. 94 SM 511-6 PWRS, presented at
the IEEE Summer Meeting, San Fransisco, July 1994.
8. T. Van Cutsem, R. Mailhot, “Validation of a fast voltage
stability analysis method on the Hydro-Qukbec system”,
Transactions on Power Systems, Vol 12. No.1, February
1997.
~
261
9. M. M. Begovic, Arun G. Phadke, “Control of Voltage
Stability Using Sensitivity Analysis”, Transactions on
Power Systems, Vol7. No.1, February 1992.
10. J. Barquin, T. Gbmez, , F. Luis Pagola, “Estimating the
Loading Limit Margin Taking Into Account Voltage
Collapse Areas”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems,
Vol.10. No. 4. November 1995.
1 1 . S. Lefebvre, P. Jean Lagac6, R. Mailhot, “Voltage
Stability as Part of On-Line Dynamic Security
Assessment”, CEA Report. Project No. 347-T959.
12. N. Fllatabo, O.B. Fosso, R. Ogendal, T. Carlsen, K.R.
Heggland, “A Method for Calculation of Margins to
Voltage Instability Applied on the Norwegian System for
Maintaining Required Security Level”, IEEE Trans. on
Power Systems, Vol. 8, No.3, August 1993.
13. B. Gao, “Powertech Labs Internal Report; Interim Report
for On-line VSA Project”, Sept 13, 1995.
14. B. Stott, 0. Alsac, A. J. Monticelli, “Security Analysis
and Optimization,“ Proceedings of the IEEE , Vol. 75,
no. 12, December 1987.
15. V. Brandwajn, M.G. Lauby, “Complete Bounding
Method for AC Contingency Screening”, IEEE Trans.
on Power Systems, Vo1.4. No. 2, May 1989.
8.0 BiograDhies
Ebrahim Vaahedi is presently the Manager of the Control
Centre Technologies Department of B.C. Hydro and serves as
an Adjunct Professor at the Elect. Eng. Dept. of the
University of British Columbia.
Yakout Mansour is presently the Manager of the Grid
Operation and Inter-Utility Affairs Division of B.C. Hydro.
He is the chairman of the System Dynamic Performance
Committee of IEEE.
Chris Fuchs Obtained his M.Eng. degree from the Simon
Fraser University of British Columbia and is currently an
Engineer in the Control Centre Technology Department of
B.C. Hydro.
Wilsun Xu obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of
British Columbia and presently is an Associate Professor at
the Electrical Engineering Dept. of the University of Alberta.
Hamid Hamadanizadeh obtained his M.Sc degree from the
University of Toronto and presently works at the Powertech
Labs. as a Senior Engineer.
Kip Morison obtained his M.Sc from the University of
Toronto and is presently the Director of the Power System
Studies Group at Powertech Labs Inc.
262

Discussion On the iterative filtering technique

This technique appears t o be similar t o the ((si-
T. Van Cutsem, C . Mokse, V. Sermanson (Uni- multaneous binary search” described in [A]. We be-
versity of LiBge, Belgium) : The authors are t o be lieve however that the latter might offer some compu-
commended for an interesting paper dealing with a tational advantages over the procedure used by the
very timely subject. We would like t o share some ex- authors.
perience on the contingency filtering problem, draw The binary search consists in building progres-
comparisons with the work reported in [A], and ob- sively an interval of stress [Sts,] such that St cor-
tain some clarifications from the authors. responds t o a stable scenario, S, t o an unstable one
and (S, - S t ) is smaller than a specified tolerance A.
On the use of load flow calculations The search starts with St = 0, corresponding t o the
Does B.C. Hydro plan t o have its Voltage Secu- base case, and S, = S ,,,, the maximum stress of
rity Assessment (VSA) based on load flow calcula- interest. At each step the interval is divided in two
tions only, or is the use of some dynamic simulation equal parts; if the mid-point is found stable (resp.
also envisaged ? Did the authors compare the two unstable) it is taken as the new lower (resp. upper)
approaches in terms of accuracy ? bound.
Load flow calculations may be appropriate for a When a secure operation limit has to be computed
first filtering, provided that they are not over-optimis- with respect to several contingencies, it is much more
tic with respect t o detailed time simulation (with the efficient to process the various contingencies “simul-
corresponding risk of discarding a dangerous contin- taneously” as outlined in Fig. A below. At a given
gency) nor too conservative (in which case, few con- stress level, the various contingencies retained from
tingencies will be filtered out). the previous step of the search are tested. If there
We have performed systematic comparisons of var- is at least one unstable contingency, the stable ones
ious security criteria and contingency ranking tech- (shown as parenthesized white dots in Fig. 1) can be
niques on the EDF (Electricit6 De France) and Hydro- discarded since the corresponding limits are higher
Qukbec [8] systems. Both utilities are using or im- than the current stress level. The unstable ones make
plementing the Quasi Steady-State (QSS) simulation up the reduced set of contingencies to be processed
approach described in [7,8,A] (incidentally, the test at the next step. The saving in computing time de-
function and QV technique quoted in the Introduc- pends obviously on how the individual limits are dis-
tion are not relevant t o [7,8]). tributed in the [0 S ,,,] interval. The stress level a t
Voltage stability in the EDF system is primar- which a contingency has been discarded provides a
ily influenced by load tap changers, overexcitation lower bound on the corresponding individual secu-
limiters and secondary voltage control. In this sys- rity limit.
tem, we found that load flow calculations were able t o
(pre-contingency)
provide fairly good estimates of secure operation lim-
its, except for some contingencies where the constant
power assumption of load flow calculations was inac-
?/ a
\
v w
f--)

i
-i
sam<\
-
system
stress
contin& # 1 .....6 ....... .......4 ..................................
curate due t o LTCs hitting their limits in dynamic I
canting, # 2 .......................*..................................
t
simulation. contin& # 3 ..........................................................
(0 >
The Hydro-Qukbec system is equipped with au- e a n s t a b l e case
(0)stable case ( c o n t i n g e n c y discarded)
tomatic devices (mainly EHV shunt reactor tripping
and synchronous condenser voltage boosting) which Figure A : Simultaneous binary search
play a major r61e in maintaining voltage stability. In
such a system there is little hope t o obtain reliable In the example of Table 2, the Iterative Filter-
ing (IF) is stopped when the 20 most limiting con-
security limits with a conventional load flow, which
cannot reproduce the time sequence of the above con- tingencies are found. For system operation it may
be of interest t o find the security margin relative to
trols.
the single most constraining contingency. How many
Time (and in particular QSS) simulation also of-
additional load flows would be needed t o achieve this
fers the possibility of embedding more elaborate cri-
objective ?
teria, such as declaring a post-contingency situation
acceptable if the amount of unrestored load power is On contingencv rankine:
below some threshold. As explained in [A], we consider that contingency

ranking is necessary t o cut down the number of con-
tingencies to be processed by the simultaneous bi-
nary search. This is particularly true when time
simulation is used for deciding about system stabil-
ity. Although QSS simulation is much faster than
full time simulation it is computationally more de-
manding than a single load flow calculation.
We have also tested indices of the type RCI and
RSI described in the paper. As a general rule, we
have been disappointed by their poor ranking capa-
bilities. With RSI-type indices, we found that some
contingencies may require the non-limited generators
to produce large arnounts of reactive power, while
these contingencies itre not dangerous from the volt-
age stability viewpcint. With RCI-type indices we
found that the (fictitious) synchronous condensers lo-
cated at load buses closest to the contingency tend
to provide the most part of the reactive power sup-
port, thereby creating a distorsion with respect to
the system instability mode. Also, we found some
cases where the system was unstable with no genera-
tor reaching its reactive limit (hence the limit open-
ing would not help).
The paper gives a misclassification rate for the
20 most constraining contingencies. Figures 4 and 5
seem to indicate that, for the whole set of contingen-
cies, the number of misclassifications is large. Could
the authors give some indication on the accuracy of
their indices, for the whole set of contingencies, and
in particular how errors share between false alarms
and non-identifications ?
In Section 3.3, RSI ranking is combined with IF.
Could the authors clarify the following points :
- at each step of the IF, RSI ranking is performed on
solved cases. What is the purpose of ranking those
cases, since they are known to be less dangerous than
the unsolved ones and will be discarded at the next
step of the IF ? Ranking would be useful to find the
most dangerous among the unsolved cases, and skip
the less dangerous ones;
- the RSI computation requires to run a new load flow
(with generator limits opened). Hence some comput-
ing time could be saved by running this load flow on
unsolved cases only.
In our opinion, JtCI or RSI-type indices can be
used to screen contingencies, i.e. filter out the less
dangerous ones, but they do not provide a severity
index that reliably reflects the value of the margin,
i.e. an index such that the smaller the margin the
larger the index. Although we found good results
with the severity index described in [A], more re-
263
search is needed towards devising a reliable, while
computationally efficient, method.
On computational requirements
Do the authors consider that 895 load flows for a
single margin computation are compatible with the
computational efficiency of a real-time VSA ? We
guess that many contingencies out of the 670 elim-
inated at the first step of the method (see Table 2)
could have been discarded based on the knowledge of
the system. Considering relevant contingencies only
would raise the number of load flows per contingency
to a more realistic value.
On security margins
Does B.C. Hydro envisage to determine security
limits, taking into account the actions taken by oper-
ators or controllers while the system is stressed in its
pre-contingency configuration ? As discussed in [A],
this departs from a widely used practice of stress-
ing the post-contingency configuration. Depending
on the system, the limits computed by the two ap-
proaches may differ significantly. The above actions
can easily be taken into account in the IF (or the
simultaneous binary search), since the system is first
stressed in its pre-contingency configuration.
The authors’ comments on the above points will
be highly appreciated.
[A] T. Van Cutsem, C. Moisse, R. Mailhot, “De-
termination of secure operating limits with respect to
voltage collapse”, paper SM 97-942 PWRS presented
at the IEEE 97 Summer Power Meeting, Berlin, July
1997
Manuscript received April 6, 1998.
E. Vaahedi, C. Fuchs, W. Xu, Y. Mansour, H.
Hamadanizadeh, and G. K. Morison: The authors would like
to thank the discussers who are regarded as experts in this area
for enriching the paper by their valuable comments and
contributions.
We would like to point out a typo correction which the
discussers brought to our attention. In the Introduction
Section, the test function and QV technique quoted should
refer to References [5, 61 instead of [7, 81.
On the use of loadflow calculations
B.C. Hydro’s on-line VSA program consists of four modules
of a) contingency screening and ranking; b) Secure region
Calculation; c) Remedial Action and d) Quasi-Steady State
Simulation. The philosophy is that pre-specified number of
(e.g. 20) most critical contingencies are short-listed from a
264
large list of the credible contingencies. The Secure Region
Calculation module then calculates the voltage stability
margin for all the short-listed contingencies. This module is
based on load-flow calculations. The remedial action module
then calculates the preventive action needed in the base case
or the corrective actions following each contingency. Finally
the Quasi-Steady State Simulation module is used for
verification of the results.
Our experience with using the load flow based techniques on
many large scale utility systems indicates that for the vast
majority of cases powerflow techniques give accurate results,
providing the modeling is done properly (i.e. generator
capability curve, load modeling, ULTC action, etc.). The
approach to dynamic security assessment we have adopted is
to provide a full range of capabilities to deal with a variety of
systems. These methods include full-time domain (in our
transient stability assessment or TSA package), quasi-dynamic
or fast time domain simulation, and powerflow. While we
currently use powerflow methods as the primary VSA solution
because of the high volume of cases which must be examined
on-line, if a system is found to require a more rigorous
method, they are available and would be used. For example, if
voltage instability is a result of induction motor stalling, or the
action of fast HVDC or FACTS controls, neither powerflow
nor quasi-dynamic approaches may be sufficient and full time-
domain may be required. However, a significant performance
compromise is required and so these methods need to be
carefully justified.
On tlze Iterative Filtering technique
There are two assertions by discussers which are responded to
separately. Firstly, the discussers have compared the
calculation solution using a binary search [A] to a Newton
Correction method used in Iterative Filtering. Binary search
uses the mid-point between a stable case and an unstable case
and continues the process until the tolerance is achieved. The
Newton Correction technique, however, uses the slope
between the last two solutions to project the next solution. The
Newton Correction technique is more efficient than the Binary
search because it uses the slope information whereas the
Binary search blindly selects the mid-point. The second
assertion is the efficiency resulted as a result of
simultaneously considering contingencies [A]. In the
technique given in [A] simulation are conducted for different
contingencies at the same stress level and if they found to be
stable they are abandoned. This resembles to Iterative Filtering
Method's of solving contingencies at the same stress level and
carrying forward the unsolved ones to the next level of stress.
However, we also see significant differences between the two
methods in the approach and application. While IF is a very
fast and accurate screening technique designed to move to any
pre-defined number of most critical contingencies, the method
given in [A] is an evaluation technique designed to find the
single most critical contingency out of a short list of
contingencies.
In the example of Table 2, the Iterative Filtering is stopped
when the 20 most limiting contingencies are found. This is
based on the philosophy of our on-line VSA that we would
have to identify preventive or corrective actions for the short-
listed critical contingencies. If we did not have to find
corrective actions, then we would only need to find the most
limiting single contingency [A]. Using Iterative Filtering the
total number of iterations to go to any pre-specified number is
almost the same (853) whether it is 20, 10 or one because it
uses the same projection equation [Equation 31. The tolerance
however, need to be reduced and that will tax the method a
few more load flow solutions (5 to 10).
On the Contingency Ranking
Contingency ranking and Contingency screening terminology
seems to create some confusion. The philosophy of our on-line
VSA is to screen the contingencies to a short-listed number of
critical contingencies which are then ranked for on-line
processing. Therefore it is essential that screening is
conducted with zero misclassification and hence the
development of Iterative Filtering. Once the screening is
conducted the ranking can be done using RSI type method. If
exact ranking among the short-listed critical contingencies is
also needed, the Iterative Filtering can be continued after the
first short-list is obtained until smaller blocks of contingencies
are also found; the method can find exact ranking by
individual contingencies if that is needed at some extra
computing time. We suggest that the discussers use Iterative
Filtering instead of RSI and RCI if accurate screening or
ranking is required. Another point is warranted here.
The paper as the discussers point out gives a misclassification
rate for the 20 most critical contingencies. Figure 4 and 5
show the actual ranking of the contingencies based on their
true margin versus the RSI method. Misclassification is
meaningless for all the contingencies because if a contingency
is really mild (e.g. normalized margin=0.93) then whether RSI
indicates its value as 0.99 or 0.85 is irrelevant. Please note that
the base case with no contingency has a normalized margin of
1.00 and from these figures good 80% to 90% of the
contingencies have normalized margin of above 80%. So
misclassification really becomes meaningful only at the end of
the screening process since it is important to know how many
of the most critical contingencies have been missed.
In section 3.3, RSI is combined with Iterative Filtering at each
step, as the discussers pointed out correctly, to find out how
closely this combination performs against the real margin. As
the discussers pointed out, in the actual implementation, the
ranking only needs to be conducted on the critical short list In
the short list of critical contingencies, there are contingencies
that do not solve with zero stress (normal) base case. In our
search for a screening method we first discovered RSI and
RCI type of methods which try to approximately calculate the
distance to nose and moved eventually to IF because of the
restriction on zero misclassification of critical contingencies
that RSI and RCI could not achieve. In our experience we
found the methods that base their index based on the
unstressed base case condition such as [A] are less accurate
than those which attempt to identify the condition at the nose
simply because they do not incorporate the stress pattern and

they base their indices on the steady state condition of the
unstressed (normal) base case before and after the
contingency. While better methods for ranking are always
welcome, there seems to be no incentive for us to further
improve RSI since the misranking within the short-list is not
as critical and all the short-listed contingencies will be studied
individually in detail.
On Computation Requirements
The functional specification for B.C. Hydro's on-line VSA
stated a requirement of handling 1000 contingencies. To be
able to handle this number of contingencies in real-time, it
also is recognized that rule based methods would be an asset
in performing the first level of filtering. However, we believe
that great care must be taken in relying too heavily on
"experience" to pre-screen contingencies. Contingencies
which are innocuous under general conditions may become
critical under abnormal conditions. Events such as the July 2,
1996 WSCC disturbance, clearly illustrated the complex
265
conditions and series of events which can lead to instability.
Therefore, "experience" based screening, which relies on an
understanding of system performance from past incidents or
studies, could be applied under normal system conditions, but
under alert or emergency conditions, (which are often the
critical times for security assessment), more rigorous
assessment is required. With the use of distributed computing,
a rigorously screening of a large number of contingencies is
possible, and probably prudent. Ultimately, we envisage the
use of an event database (populated by measurements and
studies) connected to automatic learning systems to provide
guidance on pre-screening.
On Security Margins
In our on-line VSA, the operator's pre-contingency actions are
properly simulated while the system is stressed to avoid
inaccuracies resulting from control actions. As the discussers
pointed out, this control actions can be easily simulated by IF
and the method given in [A].