IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 14, No.1, February 1990 Volt/Var Control at Distribution Substations Mesut E. Baran -Ming-Yung Hsu Department of Flectrial and Computer Engineesing ‘North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695 Abstract: This paper proposes new methods to improve the performance of the current volt/var control schemes at distribution substations. The approach makes use of the new measurement and computer resources that are now available at the substations. The paper shows that new supervisory type control schemes can be developed to improve the performance of both the voltage regulator controllers and also the substation capacitor controllers that are used at the substations for volt/var control. The new voltage regulator controller makes: of the voltage drop characteristics of the feeders it regulates. Capacitor controller uses local zeal and reactive power measurements for power factor control at the substation. Keywords: Distribution Systems, Feeder voltage ‘regulation, Substation power factor correction, I, Introduction Volt/Var control is one of the important control schemes at @ distribution substation which convention ally involves regulation of voltage and reactive power (or power factor atthe substation bus. The contzol Is achieved by Load Changing Transformers (LCs) or voltage regulators (VRs) and capacitor (CAP) banks Conventionally, these two devices are controlled separately; LTCs for regulating the substation secondary voltage, and capacitor banks for power factor correction. However, recent developments in measurement, computer and communication technologies made it possible to introduce new measurements and computation resources atthe substation for Integrated Substation Automation (ISA) [2.3] Potential benefits of improved control strategies for these devices has alreacy been demonstrated in practice. In [4} it is shown that replacing the analog control of LTCs with a Programmable Logie Controller (PLC) based scheme yields significant benefits to justify the conversion at fransmission substations. At distribution level, recent developments in distribution automation indicate a trend towards "centralized" volt/var control [2-6], which aims at controlling the VRs and the CAP PE-A08-PWRS.0-1-1988_A paper recoremended and approved by the IEEE Power Sysiem Opereions “Commtioe of the IEEE Powor Engineering Society for pubtton inthe IEEE Transactons on Powe? ‘Syste. Manuscript submited August 1, 1997; made svalabe for ating January 18,1098 Danks remotely from a dispatch center in a coordinated ‘manner. Unfortunately, theze is usually very limited real-time data available for this type of control at the dispatch centers, and therefore, itis not easy to verify the effectiveness ofthese control schemes [7] ‘The approach taken inthis study is different in that the goal here is to keep the volt/var control "Tocal" on a device basis and improve the control schemes. We investigated the feasibility of using "intelligent" local controllers for controlling both the VRs and the CAP banks at a distribution substation in an integrated fashion by making use of the new information and computer resources provided by the ISA. With this intelligent and integrated control we hope to realize the full potential benefits of the substation volt/var control, some of which areas follows: 4) Voltage regulation over the feeders: Uslties are required to keep the voltage profile over a feeder close to the rated value under all load conditions. The ANSI standard C841 [8] defines the rating ofthe voltages and alloveable variations around the rated values at service (meter) points; for example, for residential service the nominal voltage is 120 V and the allowed range (range ‘A)is 126- 114 V, under normal operating conditions. To Keep thé voltage profile within this “favorable zone’, utilities usually limit the voltage drop over the primary feeder level to7 5 Vols, as illustrated in Fig. 1. A"good” voltage regulation keeps the voltages on the feeders close to their nominal values and minimizes the voltage vatiations at all times under all load conditions. VR feeder voltae profile (120 V bse) nay {oe vol apres tiit FecRTvo Tuer — ‘vol wei Fig. 1: Voltage profile over a feeder regulated by a VR. Large voltage variations on a feeder that cause high and low voltages at service points adversely affect the performance and lifetime of the customer electrical devices; low voltages cause low illumination, slow heating of heating devices (which decreases the load diversity), overheating and/or burning out of motors, (0885-5950 /99/$10.00 © 1998 EEEand high voltages reduce the useful life of the devices, and even cause premature device failures [1]. Thus oltage quality” is an important part of power quality utilities are expected to provide. i) Control of voltage level: A good voltage regulation scheme can enable a utility to control the voltage levels ‘nits feeders, Since the demand usually depends on the voltage level to some extent, voltage control becomes an important means of load control especially during peak load periods. In [3], an ISA is developed to monitor and. ‘control the voltage regulators and capacitor banks. One of the primary use of this control scheme is the 3-5 % peak load relief that has been achieved through the feeder voltage control. A rule of thumb reported in [6s that a 1% voltage increase will result in a demand increase of 1%, ili) Control of Power Factor. Capacitor banks are usually installed at the substations to reduce the var demand from the transmission system during the heavy load conditions. These capacitors needs to be switched out, however, during the light load conditions. Controllers are used to perform these CAP bank switching operations, In practice, the benefits of volt/var control is rarely realized to full extend, for various reasons. With the conventional controllers, itis very difficult to determine an optimal control strategy, since these controllers employ a very simple control strategy that is not capable of adapting to the ever changing operating conditions of a feeder. Therefore, in practice, these devices are operated in a conservative way to minimize the excessive and unnecessary device operation. On the other hand, conservative control of these devices severely reduces thei effectiveness. “The main focus of this paper is the development of new control schemes forthe two substation devices - VR and CAP bank - in order to optimize their effectiveness. ‘The scheme is elaborated in the next section. Test results and the conclusions about the new scheme are given in sections three and four respectively. IL. Supervisory Substation Volt/Var Controller To help understand the shortcomings ofthe current practices and to identify the potential improvements that can be made, we performed a series of simulations. ‘These simulations, as will be illustrated in the next section, also illustrated the possibility that by carefully adjusting the control parameters as load changes, Substation volt/var control can be improved considerably. The proposed supervisory controller is shown in Fig. 2. Tae controller communicates with the local VR and the CAP controllers and adjusts their control parameters adaptively as the system load changes. ‘The controller makes use of the weak interaction between the VR and the substation CAP operations. The main interaction occurs during the CAP bank switching, 313 which sometimes causes VR to operate to compensate for the voltage change caused by the CAP switching. However, since the substation CAP banks operate only @ few times a day, this interaction does not seem to be an important factor in the performance of these devices. ‘Therefore, we decided to keep the common practice of separating the control of these devices, and focus instead on improving the control strategies of individual devices. The proposed new control schemes for these devices are summarized below. Supertion Vavar Cone — |e va, Vo.) cae sw 7 "Ciera CaP Coe ' z at zt wm Ea ee Fig. 2: Supervisory volt/var controller 24. Supervisory Voltage Regulator Controller ‘The conventional controllers that control the LTCs or VRs at distribution substations are simple local controllers. The controller uses the voltage measurement from the substation bus as the feedback signal and sends increase decrease signals to the device (LTC or VR) to regulate the substation bus at a desired level, Vset. To provide a smooth control, the controller has also two ‘other control parameters: Voltage Bandwidth Vw, and ‘Time Delay Tg. The controller responds to changes only if the measured voltage (Vm) remains outside the bandwidth, (Le., Vin < Vset - Vow/2, of Vm > Vaet + ‘Vinw/2) for atleast Ta sec Note that by controlling the substation bus at a desired value, we do not change the voltage drop profile lover the feeders, we simply set the voltage level over the feeders, Le, shift the voltage profile up and down. Thus, the conventional scheme of regulating the substation bus at a certain level does not provide a very effective voltage regulation along the feeder, as illustrated in Fig 1. The main shortcomings of this scheme are: i) Voltages towards the end of the feeder vary considerably as the load level on the feeder changes on a daily basis In order to make sure that the voltages along the feeder remain above the minimum level, the substation voltage needs tobe kept ata high level To overcome the shortcomings of this scheme, conventional controllers have a Line Drop Compensator (LDC) feature that allows for the controller to regulate @ remote node (called the load center) on the feeder rather than the substation bus, The LDC estimates the remote node voltage by using the feeder current measurement atthe substation as Vig = Wo ~ Pret Tol o34 ‘where, Vo is the measured voltage at the substation, Iy is the measued current, and Zset = Tet +} Xe is the user defined LDC impedance setting. This scheme can be quite effective, under special conditions when the load is, concentrated around the assumed load center, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Rsv, Fig. 3: Voltage profile over a feeder with VR and LDC The scheme, however, is not used very widely in practice [6], due mainly o the following shortcomings: 2) Its very difficult to identify the ‘load center" on a feeder, especially ifthe loads are distributed unevenly along the feeder with many laterals. ii) Its dificult to determine the proper control settings, ‘especially the desired vollage setting for the remote rode; low values may cause low voltages towards the ‘end of the feeder, and high values may cause high voltages toward the substation end of the feeder, as, illustrated in the figure i) In ease of the LTC regulating the substation bus that supplies multiple feeders, the feeders should have similar voltage drop characteristics for the LDC to be Overcoming these shortcomings without using a voltage measurement from the feeder as the feedback is, a very challenging task. On the other hand, what we really need for an effective voltage control at the substation is an estimation of the total voltage drop on the feeders, VD = Vj-Vy, where ¥, and Vy are the voltages at the first and the last nodes of a feeder, respectively, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Once, we know ¥D then we can easily set the substation voltage ata level that would put the voltage profile on the feeder within the desired limits In order to determine the feasibility of estimating VD over a feeder, based on substation measurements, we performed numerous simulations on different feeders with diferent load types and load profiles. Some of these simulations are presented in the next section. From these simulations, we obtained the VD versus feeder current characteristics of the feeders, one of ‘hich is given in Fig. 6. Once these characteristics are ‘ebtained from simulations, then it can be used in the controller to estimate the voltage drop. As illustrated in Fig. 6, our investigations indicate that the relationship between the VD and the feeder current Ij is almost linear. Thus, tis relationship ean be approximated as WD Zag “hg ° where Zeff is the “effective impedance,” ie, the proportionality constant between the VD and ig.” The Simplest way to obtain the feeder constant Zip in practice is to do a simulation of the feeder operation at a typical load level using a feeder analysis program (power flow program). Such a simulation will give the total voltage drop over the feeder VDS and the substation load current fj, then 24g = VD" Hh ° Since utilities now perform feeder simulations routinely for feeder operation and planning purposes, obtaining this parameter would not be a problem in practice. ‘The supervisory controller use Ze to estimate the voltage drop over the feeder and to set the substation voltage to Vset, such that the voltages over the feeder will all be above a desired value, Vies, i, Your = Vas *2ey a ® where {dis the load current measurement made at the substation end of the feeder. This control strategy will {deally Keep the lowest voltage on the feeder at Ve, as illustrated in Fig. 4. msv, Fig. 4: Feeder voltage profile with new control strategy Note that VD calculation should be made on a feeder basis. Thus, in the case of voltage regulation via an LIC supplying multiple feeders, all the feeder currents should be monitored, and the controller should estimate the VD on each feeder separately using (2), and then determine Vset based on the maximum VD. AAs illustrated in Fig, 2, we propose to implement this new controller as a supervisory controller that controls the device controller (of LTC or VR). The supervisory controller monitors the load levels on the feeders and updates the device contzol settings (which are_ the substation voltage level Vset and the voltage control bandwidth Vir) only if the load changes appreciably, and then sends these setlings to the device controller to take the necessary control action ‘To further improve the performance of the supervisory contyoller, we added the following ‘adaptive" features to the controller 4) Supervisory controller monitors the feeder currents and averages them over the minimum control interval (which is chosen as 15 min.). If the change in this value Ig is above a specified amount then the new settings are calculated and sent to the voltage regulator. The minimum change in load current is, selected in our simulations as 10% of the rating of the voltage regulator. This setting is based on the rationale that change in load current should be big, ‘enough to cause at east one or two tap movementsii) Supervisory controller adapts the controller settings as follows: First the desired voltage level is selected based on the load level Sq(kVA) as, Vis if Vig iF 5g < 07S Sy 207" 5 Vaes Vaes where Vp and Vjgare the user defined voltage settings forthe low and high oad levels, espectively (in simulations their default values are chosen as 122 V and 120 V, respectively), Note that 0.7*Sf=* represents the threshold for “high” fon level Next, the substation voltage setting is calculated as Veer = Vaes + Zo Ua ‘This setting is checked against the allowed limit, Le, if Myer > WAP (= 126V) then Vogy= VE. ‘This prevents the regulator from raising the voltage at the substation higher than the maximum level of 126 \V. This is a feature conventional LDCs do not usually hhave, and it requires additional logic to implement it ‘on LDCs, Finally, the voltage control bandwidth Vj, is adjusted based on the load level as follows: Vigw = vom ypest Af Vow > 4 V then vbw if Vow < 1.5 .V then Vow ay 15v Where VD is the maximum allowable voltage drop fn the feeder (which is usually set to 7.5 V), 1.5 V and 4.V correspond to the minimum and maximum control bandwidth settings of the VR, respectively, and vDe=t is the eatimated voltage drop on the feeder (ie, VD®" = Zeg'ld) ‘These adaptive schemes improve the voltage regulation. on the feeder as follows: 4) The scheme for adapting the desired voltage level Vides is based on the observation that at high load levels the substation voltage on the transmission side (unregulated source bus) is low and the voltage drop is high on the feeder, whereas, at light load conditions at night, the substation voltage is high and the voltage drop on the feeder is low. li) Changing the voltage regulation bandwidth Viw adaptively - decreasing it as the load increases - gives the VR a large bandwidth at low load levels to prevent VR responding to small load changes at night, whereas during high load conditions, VR receives smaller bandwidths and thus it becomes more responsive to the load changes. ‘These adaptive features try to minimize the voltage variations especially towards the substation end of the ais feeder, and also to eliminate the unnecessary voltage regulator operations. Performance of this supervisory controller has been tested exhaustively using a feeder simulator. Test results are summarized in the test results section, 22. Substation Capacitor Control ‘The substation capacitors are usually placed to keep the power factor at the substation within some desired limits. The conventional CAP control schemes are based on the substation load current which is not a direct measure of power factor. However, since CAP banks change the reactive power at the substation, we developed the following simple control strategy based on the reactive power measurement (which is available in most ofthe substations): SWAIN if Qa > 06Q SW-OUT if Qa <04Q¢ where Qa isthe reactive power measurement of the load a the substation, and Qe is the kVar rating of the substation CAP bank. The threshold values 06 and O are chosen to make sure that the CAP bank will not tvercompensate the var demand a8 it switches on/off ‘As it wil be illustrated in the test results section, this fimple control scheme works very well and keepe the power factor atthe substation above 095 especially {faring heavy load conditions, Note that this contol i {or substation CAP banks only, asthe feeder CAPs ae operated differently (usually for power loss reduction and or voltage boos (7. II, VoluVar Control Simulations To test the performance of the new control schemes, a feeder simulator is used [9}. The feeder Simulator represents the feeder on a phase basis and pperforms a three-phase power flow analysis of the feeder for a given load profile. For simulation of the feeder operation over a period of time, power flow calculations are repeated for small enough time intervals (25 sec), and the operation of devices such as LTC's, voltage regulators, capacitor banks, and generators are Simulated as the lod changes ‘The results in this section is based on the 34 node TBE test feeder [10] whose one-line diagram is given in Fig. 5. The feeder line and load data is taken from {10}. For simulations, the feeder is modified slightly by adding a CAP bank CAPI at the substation, and by fading a branch behind the VR to sepresent the voltage Variations on the high side of the VR. The tesis performed can be grouped in two parts: tests to Aetermine the voltage drop characteristics of feeders, and tests to determine the performance ofthe proposed supervisory volt/var controller316 2» wy Yr card SOkVarT CAP SoKvael Fig, 5: IEFE test feeder Feeder Voltage Drop Characteristics ‘The first set of tests are aimed at characterizing the voltage drop characteristics of feeders, in particular tests axe aimed to check the validity ofthe basic preposition ‘We had for the controle; the voltage drop onthe feder varies linearly with the total feeder load current measured at the substation, Ij. The tests involved simulating the operation of the test feeder for the assumed feeder load profile given in Fig. 8. At each load Tove, the loads (both real and reactive parts) are varied randomly by 20% around the nominet level of Fig. 8 to account for uncertainties in load data and non- conformity among loads. To get a conservative (bigger than the actual) VD estimation, the VR is assumed inoperative. The simulation is repeated thee times with different load types: constant power (T1), constant ‘current (12), and constant impedance (T3) to take into account the sensitivities of loads to voltage variations. ‘These simulations represent a typical practical ease in which the loads are reasonably conforming but their Sensitivity to volage Variations is not well kneven From the simulations, the feeder VD and the corresponding substation load current are obtained for each load level and the results are presented in Figure 6. ‘These results clearly confiem our assertion that the total voltage drop on a feeder Varies almost linearly with the substation load curzent. The line shown in the figure represents the least square line fit on the data that consists ofall the three load types. Since actual loads aze "usually some combination of these load types, the above Fig. 6: Feeder Voltage drop characteristics with conforming loads Legend: TI (+), T2(o), T3(X), Reg. Line (~ } ) simulation indicates that the actual feeder voltage drop. ‘curve will also be almost linea. To futher test the linearity of VD characteristics under non-conforming load conditions, the above tests have been repeated with half of dhe loads onthe feeder having. different load profile shown in Fig. 8. The new VD characteristics are given in Figure 7. These results indicat that non-conformity among loads does not necessarily change the linearity of the Voltage drop characteristic. To obtain the VD proportionality constant Ze, we first sed the segression line in Fig. 6 and we caleated Zefpas 83 9. which corsesponds to the slope ofthe line However, as pointed out in previous section, since the VD characteristics are almost linear, itis possible to calculate the VD proportionality constant Zy from a Single simulation. For this, we chose a point that gives a conservative VD estimate by considering a typical high Toad level (which corresponds tothe point indicated by * in Fig. 6) and by representing the loads a8 constant power loads. From the feeder simulation at this point we dletezmined the corresponding VD and the load eusrent Ig. These values are then used to calculate the proportionality constant as Zeff=VD/Id = 67/0.76= 88 2 Comparing the two values confirms that indeed a conservative estimate of Zyycan be obtained based on a single feeder operating point simulation. This Somsrvlve 2p ured inthe aperaery VR conto ‘simulations. oe Fig. 7: Feeder Voltage drop characteristics with non-conforming loads (Legend: TI (+ }, T2(0), T3 (x), Reg. Line (=) )Supervisory VolUVar Controller To test the performance of the proposed super- visory controler, we repeated the feder simlation T2 twice, with the following VR controllers Ta LDC: The voltage regulator controlled with a traditional LDC set fo contol the remote node at 2/3 of the main feeder with Vées = 120V, Vow = 2V, Za 684/72 0}. 15 - SVC. The voltage regulator controled by the proposed supervisory controller with Vj, ~ 120V, Van = 122V, = 88 ‘The results ofthese two tet are summarized in figures Gand 10. These resulls illustrate the advantages ofthe new supervisory controller over the traditional controller. 4) The voltage profile curves in Fig. 9, corresponding to the conventional voltage regulator operation illustrate some of the most common shortcomings of this controller. First, the voltage atthe end node (Vy) getting Ihigher than the desited level of 120 V at high load levels (irs. 7-9, 16.20) indicates thatthe LDC overcompensates the voltage (note that LDC is st to regulate an upstream, node at 120 V). Due to overcompencation, the regulator raises the substation voltage (Vo) above the maximum level of 126 V especially atthe high load levels in order to regulate the voltage atthe remote node. AS a result, ‘we have moderate voltage variations at the end ofthe feeder (2 V), but relatively large variations at the substation end of the feeder (4:3 V) as indicated in TbL. 1 i) The voltage profile curves in Fig 10, corresponding to the voltage regulator operation under new supervisory controller, show that the new controller improves the voltage regulation as desired; the nevr controler Keeps the voltage at the end of the feeder at around the Table 1: Voltage Variations atthe two end nodes ofthe feeder Com Vo. Ta troller | yx _ymn avo | vmx _vmn__ ave pe | 171] ise] 23 [wis pies] 20 sve_p assets a er | 7 | meow (@) conforming loads (©) non-conforming loads Figure 8: Reeder Nominal Dally Load Profile 3i7 desired level of 120 V during high load levels and allows for higher voltages at light load conditions. The controller also keeps the voltage at the substation end below its maximum value of 126 V, especially at high load conditions, and decreases the voltage at light load conditions to prevent high voltage fluctuations on the feeder. As a result, the voltage fluctuations at the substation end is reduced to 1.7 V while keeping the fluctuations atthe feeder end at around 4 V, as indicated in TL. 1. Thus, the new controller tries to minimize the voltage variations at both ends of the feeder. ii) Comparison of the voltage regulator tap movements, in Figs. 9 and 10, corresponding to the conventional and supervisory controller schemes, indicates the other advantage of the supervisory controller; supervisor controller minimizes the tap movements during light load conditions and allows for more tap movements during heavy load conditions. This, then, results in considerable less tap movement than that of the ‘conventional control; the maximum number of regulator ‘operations are 19 and 12 per day under the conventional and supervisory controllers, respectively. a fabswopre eens Pee Ww . (a): Voltage profiles on the main feeder ——_—_— pe ay pF UW (@): Top movements ofthe Voltage regulator igure 9:4 with conventional contrller fap Ag (a) Voltage profiles on the main feeder 2 FO 5 eee (0) Tap movement of he Voltage regulator Figure 10-75 with upericory VR controle318 ‘The final set of tests (16) are aimed at testing the performance of the proposed supervisory substation CAP controller scheme. For this, the last test TS is repeated with the substation CAP bank being controlled. by the new supervisory controller. Operation of the CAP bank under the supervisory controller, and. the improvements made on the power factor at the substation as a result ofthis capacitor control scheme are ‘given in Fig. 11. (@) substation af (CAP controler on: —, CAP controller off:--) Poa (6) VR Tap Movernents Fig. 11: Supervisory contol of substation CAP Fig, 11 clearly indicates that the new contol scheme yields a very desirable power factor (9) profile load pf Goring light lond conditions, and high Pf (9/5099) ‘during heavy load conditions, Also, comparing Fig. 11.¢ with Fig: 10 ilustrates the effect of CAP operation on the Vit operations CAP reduces amount of tap ‘movement (due fo voliage boost from CAP), but casas VR to operate whenever CAP switches on/off (VR operation increases from 12 to 16) IV. Conclusions In this paper it is shown that control schemes for voltage regulators and capacitor banks at distribution substations can be improved by a supervisory controller. ‘The controller conforms with the conventional control scheme; separate control of the voltage regulator to improve the voltage regulation over the feeders, and the ‘capacitor to improve the power factor at the substation. ‘Therefore, the new controllers can work with the existing conventional controllers. One of the main features of the new control scheme is the estimation of voltage drop over the feeders. Another feature of the controller is the ability to monitor the system and adapt the control parameters accordingly. The test results indicate that these two features improve especially the voltage regulation over the feeders, Test results also indicate that the new capacitor controller scheme is very effective in ‘improving the power factor correction at the substation, ‘We envision that these supervisory controllers will be the new generation of controllers that can be used in. fan automated substation environment as the substation become a center hub for integrating distribution automation functions, References [1] Gonen Turan, Electric Power Distribution System Engineering, McGraw-Hill, 1986, D2} OBrian P-T, Computerizing Substation Control Systems, T&D World, April 1996, pp. 56-60. 3] Williams BR. & Walden D. G., Distribution Automation Strategy for the Future, T&D World, July 1994, pp. 1621. [6] Basset D,, "Control of Tap Change Under Load ‘Transformers Through the Use of Programmable Logic Controllers," IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, ‘Oct. 1993, pp. 1759-1765. 5] Lu FC, and Hsu Y¥-Y., “Fuzzy Dynamic Programming Approach to Reactive Power/ Voltage Control in a Distribution Substation,” IEEE 1996 Winter Meeting, paper nc: WM96-020. [6] Voltage Regulation, GE manual on Voltage Regulator Products, GE, 1981. 7] Roytelman, I, BK. Wee, RL. Lug, “Pilot Project to Estimate the Centralized Volt/Var Control,” Predngs. of PICA 1897 Conf, May 1997, pp. 310-345. [8] ANSTC84.1 - 1989, American National Standard for Electric Power Systems & Equipment - Voltage Ratings (60H). [9] Baran, M.E,, Staton F.A., and Gajda EW., "A Distribution Feeder Simulator,” Proceedings of the TASTED Int. Conf, Oct. 1997, Orlando, pp. 401-404. [10] IEEE W.G,, Radial Distribution Test Feeders, IEEE ‘Trans. on Power Systems, Aug. 1991, pp. 975-985 Acknowledgments ‘This research has been supported by ABB ETI, Raleigh, NC. The authors would like to acknowledge the invaluable support from Dr. Khoi Vu and Dr. Damir Novosel of ABB. Mesut E, Baran is currently an Assistant Professor at NCSU. His research interests include distribution and transmission power systems, optimization, and system theory. ‘Ming-Yung Hsu is pursuing his MS. degree in electrical engineering at the NCSU. His area of interest is the ‘computer applications in power systems.