Fault Induced Delayed Voltage Recovery (FIDVR):
Modeling and Guidelines
Sarina Adhikari *
Jens Schoene Commonwealth Edison Company
EnerNex, A CESI Company Chicago, IL USA
Knoxville, TN USA
*Contact: sadhikari@enernex.com
Abstract—Voltage sensitive loads are broadly classified as static
or steady state, and dynamic load types. After several years of
research and development, Bonneville Power Administration
(BPA) and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC)
developed the Composite Load Model structure comprising of
different types of static loads, electronic loads, three phase and
single phase compressor motors. Single phase compressor
motors are the main drivers of the phenomenon termed as Fault
Induced Delayed Voltage Recovery (FIDVR). In the present
work, we developed a computer simulation model in GE PSLF
that could replicate the FIDVR event in the Valley substation of
Southern California Edison (SCE) that occurred in 2004. We
also performed some sensitivity analysis of various parameters
of three-phase and single phase compressor A/C motor loads
and produced a guideline showing some typical values of
different parameters to replicate the real world FIDVR events.
At last, we have presented a broad guideline for steady state
cascading simulations. This paper is based on a project report
prepared for the CEATI International Power System Planning
and Operations Program, which consists of North American
electrical utilities focused on Transmission Systems.
Index Terms—Fault Induced Delayed Voltage Recovery
(FIDVR), Voltage Sensitive load, Single phase A/C compressor
motors, sensitivity study, general guideline
I. INTRODUCTION
Based on the behavior of voltage sensitive loads during
normal and disturbance conditions, voltage sensitive loads are
classified into static or steady state, and dynamic load types.
The static or steady state loads such as resistive and lighting
loads are represented as the ZIP models in which Z represents
constant impedance loads, I represents constant current, and P
represents constant power loads. Dynamic models are capable
of capturing the dynamic behavior of loads during disturbance
conditions. Composite load models are models that capture the
behavior of static, electronic, and dynamic loads. The
composite load models accurately aggregate different types of
loads and help in understanding the behavior of different loads
under various system contingency conditions which, as a
result, help in understanding the system impacts due to voltage
sensitive load loss.
Centre for Energy Advancement through Technological Innovation
(CEATI International)
978-1-7281-1981-6/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
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Niroj Gurung Alex Mogilevsky
CEATI International
Quebec, Canada
alex.mogilevsky@ceati.com
The concept of composite load model is considered a state-
of-art dynamic load model [1]. It is important to replicate the
behavior of the increasing amount of single phase and three
phase motor loads along with other types of static and
electronic loads in industrial, commercial and residential area.
Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and Western
Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) developed
Composite load model that has been implemented in PTI
PSS/e as well as GE PSLF software platforms. This load
model comprises of ZIP loads, electronic loads, three different
types of three phase motor loads, and single phase air
conditioner (A/C) compressor motor loads [1].
The phenomenon in which the system voltage remains at
excessively low levels for the duration of several seconds,
even after the clearing of a transmission, subtransmission, or
distribution fault are classified as FIDVR [1]. FIDVR events
are believed to be caused by a large percentage of single phase
induction motor loads with constant torque characteristics that
stall when the system voltage dips to some lower values
during the fault conditions. These types of motors draw a large
amount of reactive power from the grid. In this stalled or
locked-rotor condition, these motor draw 5-6 times their
steady state current. This might lead to voltage collapse and
several cascading events in the system. In [2], various impacts
of FIDVR events to the grid and the distribution customers are
discussed in detail. The effects could be related to power
quality issues, opening of automatic reclosers due to high
currents or load imbalance or, even tripping off of the
distribution circuits due to current imbalance caused by
uneven distribution of stalled air conditioner (A/C) units.
A short description on the FIDVR phenomenon is
provided in Section II. In Section III, a brief review on the
characteristics of different types of voltage sensitive loads that
impact the recovery of voltage following any types of system
disturbance is presented. Building upon several literature in
this area, this paper presents some results of modeling and
replicating the real world FIDVR event in Section IV. The
main contributions of the paper are to provide a detailed
guideline for modeling FIDVR types of events and a guideline
for the simulation of cascading events caused due to FIDVR
events. The parametric sensitivity study and guidelines are
discussed in Section V and VI respectively. Lastly, Section
VII provides concluding remarks and some recommendations
based on the outcome of this work.
II. PHENOMENON OF FAULT INDUCED DELAYED VOLTAGE
RECOVERY (FIDVR)
Figure 1 shows a typical delayed voltage recovery profile
on a 230 KV circuit located in Southern California following a
fault [3]. As observed in the figure, the voltage decreased to
around 79 percent of the nominal voltage (point 1) following
the fault. This reduction in voltage caused the air conditioning
units to stall. These stalled A/C units limited the system
voltage from the nominal voltage level (point 2). As the
thermal overload protection switches of the A/C units operated
by tripping the units off of the connected system, the voltage
recovered to the value higher than the nominal by around 6
percent in this case (point 3).
4. LTC/CAPS Off due to Overvoltage
5. Load coming
+6%
back On
Nominal Voltage
3. Overshoot due to
LTC/CAPS
‐21%
6. Undervoltage due to caps still
off line
2. Delayed Recovery as Stalled A/
Cs Disconnect Via Thermal
Overload Protection
1. Fault & Fault
Clears
Figure 1. Typical delayed voltage recovery – this event was recorded
following a 230 kV transmission fault in Southern California [3].
The overshooting of the voltage response happened as
some of the motor loads were taken out of the system whereas
the capacitor banks are still online. The overvoltage condition
resulted in the tripping of the capacitor banks and the
operations of the load side transformer taps as shown in point
4. After some interval of time, the loads, including the A/C
loads, began to reconnect back to the system. Since some of
the capacitor banks had already tripped, the system voltage
went below the nominal voltage as shown by points 5 and 6 in
the figure. These types of conditions make the system
vulnerable to other cascading events. The light inertia
induction motors, such as air conditioner motors, lose their
speed rapidly following the voltage dip conditions. Such
motors will stall for all faults with the duration more than five
cycles and the voltage dip magnitude less than 60% of the
nominal voltage [4].
III. CHARACTERIZATION OF VOLTAGE SENSITIVE LOAD
Voltage sensitive loads like motor loads with undervoltage
protection scheme disconnect from the system if the supply
voltage deviation exceeds pre-set limits. Various types of
voltage sensitive loads that exist in the present system are dc
drives, A/C compressor motors, adjustable speed motor drives
(ASDs), motor contractors, electromechanical relays, and
personal computers. These loads are highly sensitive to
voltage sags and swells. The characteristics of some types of
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voltage sensitive loads that play important role in FIDVR
events are described below [1].
A. Three phase Induction Motors
Three-phase induction motors are usually larger motors
supplied with three-phase voltages. The key elements that
determine their dynamic response during events such as
voltage sags and swell are inertia, speed-torque
characteristics, load-torque characteristics, and their
protection scheme. The inertia time constant of three phase
motors can vary from as low as 0.1 second to as high as 1
second. Motors with higher inertia are more likely to ride
through a voltage dip caused by a system disturbance.
Three-phase induction motors have a local control board
and motor contactors that drop out between 55-65% of the
nominal voltage [1]. These motors generally stall at around
50% voltage. Therefore, it is very likely that the contactors
drop out before the motor stalling phenomenon. Some of the
three-phase motors might also have undervoltage protection
which operates around 2 seconds for 80% voltage dip. Large
three-phase motors such as the chiller motors have an
advanced control board with different types of protection
schemes such as undervoltage, overcurrent, and phase
unbalance.
B. Single-phase Residential A/C Motors
Motors driving air compressors for residential cooling are
typically supplied by single-phase voltage. There are
differences in dynamic characteristics of single-phase
residential A/C motors compared to the large three-phase
induction motors used in commercial and industrial scale
These single-phase loads make up a significant portion of the
overall load during peak-summer demand and, consequently,
they play a critical role in selecting proper cable sizes, switch
ratings, and other system design decisions. Single-phase
residential A/C motors are believed to be the main driver for
FIDVR events and it is therefore, very important to
understand the dynamics of these motors during grid faults.
The inertia of single-phase motors used in residential air
conditioning is very small (0.03-0.05 seconds). This leads to
rapid deceleration of the A/C motors during the grid events in
which the voltage is suppressed. Therefore, these motors are
highly susceptible to stalling even for the faults that are
cleared in as low as 3 cycles, according to the laboratory tests
conducted by SCE and BPA [5,6].
There are two types of protection schemes equipped in
single-phase induction motors: (1) contactors, and (2) thermal
protection relay. The contactors trip the motors off the grid if
the voltage drops below 40%. In practice, the stalled voltage
is typically higher than 40% and thus, the contactors do not
operate. Even in situations when the contactor trips the
compressor, it was found that it delays the stalling of the
motors but cannot completely prevent the stalling
phenomenon; the compressor motor stalls as the contactor
recloses. The thermal protection relay is an inverse-time
overcurrent relay that trips off the motor during stalling after
a time-delay determined by the protection curve [1].
 IV. COMPUTER SIMULATION MODEL DEVELOPMENT
This section provides a detailed description of the
development of a computer simulation model that could
replicate the real world FIDVR event. The composite load
model in GE PSLF platform is utilized to model the dynamic
loads in the system. The composite load model comprise of
four different types of motor loads. Motor A represents small
low-inertia three phase compressor motors, Motor B
represents fan motors used in residential and commercial
buildings such as ventilation fans in buildings or air handler
fans. These motors usually have high inertia (0.25-1.0 secs).
Motor C represents direct connected pump motors in
commercial buildings with low inertia in the range of 0.1-0.2
secs. Lastly, Motor D represents single-phase compressor
motors in residential and small commercial cooling and
refrigeration with very low inertia (0.03-0.05 secs).
The summer 2004 FIDVR event at the Valley Station of
the Southern California Edison (SCE) system is considered
the benchmark for the simulation [7,8]. The available data
related to the load composition in the Valley system is also
taken from [7]. This paper, however, does not provide the
detailed system parameters of the employed model. The
Valley system model as shown in Figure 2, with some typical
system parameter values, was developed in GE PSLF
platform. The total active power and reactive power load
served by the Valley station before the fault scenario is
considered to be 908 MW and 187 MVar respectively
according to the data provided in [7].
Figure 2. Oneline diagram and data considered to model SCE’s Valley
Station.
A three-phase-to-ground fault is applied at Valley 115 kV
Bus 2 at time, t = 0.5 seconds. The fault clears after 4 cycles
at t = 0.5666 seconds.
Figure 3 shows the voltage profile at 115 kV bus (Bus 2)
of the Valley model from the PSLF simulation as compared
to the one measured by the Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU)
during the FIDVR event. It took nearly 30 seconds to recover
the voltage back to the pre-fault voltage level. The developed
PSLF system model with the chosen composite load model
parameters is able to closely imitate the behavior of this
phenomenon, as seen from this figure.
Figure 4 a) shows the voltage profiles of different buses in
the Valley model in which the tripping characteristics of the
motor loads are not modeled.
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Figure 3. Measured vs simulated voltage profile of 115 kV bus (Bus 2) of
Valley model.
a) b)
Figure 4. Bus voltage profiles in the valley model: a) without modeling the
motor load tripping characteristics; b) all the loads modeled as ZIP loads.
In this case, the voltage cannot recover even after the fault
is cleared as the stalled motors are not removed from the
system, and there is a possibility of system wide voltage
collapse, as can be observed from the figure. Therefore, the
lack of voltage sensitive load loss will lead to the system
level voltage collapse that shows entirely different system
steady state responses as compared to the system with voltage
sensitive load loss which is close to the behavior of the
practical systems.
Figure 4 b) shows the voltage profiles of the Valley buses
when all the loads in the Valley system are modeled only as
static ZIP loads. In this case, the system voltages show rapid
recovery after the fault. This result is also quite different than
the one observed in the real FIDVR events. This shows that
representation of real world load types with the accurate load
models is very important in order to obtain the real-world
dynamic and steady state responses in the computer
simulation models.
V. PARAMETER SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
The WECC composite model is very comprehensive and is
comprised of more than 130 parameters. Therefore, it is
crucial to understand the sensitivity of some of the important
parameters of the composite load model in overall load
response [9].
For the parametric sensitivity analysis, a three phase to
ground fault is applied at the 115 kV bus at t = 0.5 secs and it
clears at t = 0.5666 secs which is after 4 cycles.
Table 1 shows the fraction of different types of motor loads
in composite load model considered for the sensitivity study.
In Scenario 1, fraction of Motor A, B, and C combined is
higher that the fraction of Motor D.
 Table 1 Fraction of motor loads for sensitivity study
In Scenario 2, fraction of Motor A, B, C combined is equal
to the fraction of Motor D, and in Scenario 3, fraction of
Motor D is higher than the fraction of Motor A, B, and C
combined. Only some of the selected results from the
parametric sensitivity analysis are presented in this paper.
a) b)
Figure 5. Sensitivity of a) first low-voltage trip delay time (secs) in Scenario
1; b) thermal protection trip start and completion level in Scenario 2.
Figure 5 a) shows the sensitivity of first low-voltage trip
delay time of Motors A, B and C for Scenario 1. It can be
observed that the system is capable of rapidly recovering the
voltage when the trip delay time is less which means that the
three phase motors trip sooner than later during the low
voltage condition. Figure 5 b) demonstrates the effects of
thermal protection trip start and completion level on the
system voltage recovery in Scenario 2 which has equal
fractions of three phase and single phase A/C motor loads.
The sooner the thermal protection trip starts, the sooner the
system can rid itself of those stalled motors that consume
large amounts of reactive power, hence faster voltage
recovery.
a) b)
Figure 6. Sensitivity of a) Tstall in Scenario 3; b) Motor D thermal time
constant in Scenario 3.
Figure 6 a) shows the impact of stall time delay, Tstall (in
seconds) on the system voltage profile. Note that the curves
with lower values of Tstall are overlapped with each other. It
is clear that if the Tstall is a high value, the single phase A/C
compressor motors do not stall until this time delay is
reached; the practical FIDVR phenomenon cannot be
captured in the model. Therefore, it is very important to
choose this parameter precisely and appropriately while
modeling different load compositions of any system. A
typical range of Tstall is from 0.03 to 0.033 seconds.
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The thermal time constant of single-phase A/C motors is
another critical parameter while modeling the FIDVR events.
It is clear from Figure 6 b) that, as this time constant
decreases, the system voltage is capable of rapidly recovering
to the normal operational voltage range. This time constant is
highly dependent on the design of the compressor motors.
Table 2 shows typical values of different important
parameters in the composite load model in order to model the
real world FIDVR events based on the parametric analysis.
Table 2 Typical values of Motor D parameters to model FIDVR events
VI. GENERAL GUIDELINES ON MODELING FIDVR EVENTS
The sensitivity analysis performed in Section V
demonstrated that the system voltage response is more
sensitive to some parameters and less sensitive to others. The
most sensitive parameters of the composite load model are
identified in Table 2. One of the important parameters are
fractions of different types of motor loads. Therefore, the
composition of load in any system is the most important
variable to be determined. Three-phase motor loads are less
susceptible to stall phenomenon during low voltage
conditions because of their high inertia and because the
thermal protection kicks in before reaching the stall voltage.
The choice of Tstall should be carefully determined while
modeling the FIDVR events. It is recommended that the
chosen Tstall should be lower than 0.06 seconds. A higher
Tstall value will not be able to model the realistic behavior of
the stalled single-phase motor loads.
The contactor voltage at which tripping starts and
completes should be chosen such that the stalled motors are
removed as soon as the voltage dips below certain threshold.
If this voltage threshold for the motor tripping is considered
as a very low value, the stalled motors continue to consume
huge amount of reactive power that will lead to a system wide
voltage collapse.
The A/C compressor motor thermal time constant is
another critical parameter that impacts the voltage recovery
during FIDVR events. The voltage recovery is faster for
lower time constants. The thermal time constants vary
between different designs of the A/C motor loads. This is a
parameter that can be improved with better design.
In summary, the most sensitive parameters that affect
voltage response of a system with large percentage of single-
phase A/C compressor motors fall into the following
categories:
1. Thermal contactor trip characteristics
2. Thermal time constants
3. Undervoltage protection characteristics
4. Single-phase machine stall characteristics (Vstall,
Tstall)
Several series of simulation cases were studied to extract
some important requirements in the modeling platform for
steady state simulations of the FIDVR events. The results of
these cases are not presented in this paper. However, a
summary of general guideline for steady-state cascading
analysis based on those results are listed below:
 In any bulk power systems with a large percentage
of single phase A/C motors, the amount of voltage
sensitive load lost during the FIDVR type events is
quite high. It can be as high has 43% of the total
load of the system based on the performed
simulations.
 If the voltage-sensitive load loss is improperly
modeled in the dynamic simulation environment, the
results obtained from the computer simulation
models will be inconsistent with the historical event
results obtained in the real world systems. Therefore,
modeling of accurate combination of loads with
appropriate tripping and reconnection characteristics
is critical in any dynamic simulations.
 The dynamic simulation should be performed from
pre-fault to 30 minutes for the bulk-power systems
with large percentage of single-phase A/C motor
loads prone to stalling as the voltage at the load
interconnection point goes beyond 90%. This
timeframe will capture the operations of all the
system elements that are expected to be lost, restored
or changed in status prior to attaining the new steady
state conditions.
 For the scenarios and contingencies where the
voltage at the generation interconnection points
could fall below 90% of the nominal system bus
voltage, voltage-sensitive generation can be lost.
Therefore, the results of the steady-state cascading
analysis would be inaccurate if we do not consider
the voltage-sensitive generation loss in addition to
the voltage-sensitive load loss in the simulations. It
is recommended and proposed that a future study
should consider such generation loss during dynamic
simulations.
VII. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The major outcomes of this work are summarized below:
 A validated computer simulation model with the
WECC composite load model developed in GE
PSLF V 21.0_04 platform.
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 Sensitivity analysis of the effects of different
composite load model parameters on the system
voltage response
 A general guideline about the most sensitive
composite load model parameters, typical values of
those parameters and a guideline on simulations of
steady state cascading
In this paper, we analyzed the behavior of the aggregated
composite load model in simple aggregated test systems. It is
also observed that the actual practical system events cannot be
replicated without modeling the loss of voltage-sensitive load
in the system. While it is understood that the FIDVR
phenomenon occurs due to higher percentage of stalled single-
phase motor loads in a system, the study on the ways to
mitigate such phenomenon is another very interesting and
important area of research and investigation. It is highly
recommended to perform such studies in continuation of this
work to develop a better understanding of the behavior of
these loads and to find out the ways to protect the bulk power
system from system-wide voltage collapse and cascading
events. In addition to the impact of voltage-sensitive load loss
into the system, the impact of voltage-sensitive generation loss
is another important element during FIDVR-type events.
Therefore, this study should be extended to investigate further
on the generation loss.
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