174 10 Reactive Power Planning

10.2 Voltage Performance of a System

Over the years, voltage performance of a power system has received attention from
both analysis and improvement points of view. Although voltage magnitudes are,
normally, of main concern, during the last, perhaps, two decades, voltage stability
is also received attention in literature. In this section, we try to briefly, differentiate
between these two aspects of voltage performance of a system. Following that, we
review some of the indices which may be used for each case.

10.2.1 Voltage Profile

A good word for acceptable voltage magnitudes of a system buses is voltage

profile. Normally a voltage magnitude of 1.0 p.u. is considered to be favorable.
For PQ (load) buses, in practical conditions, the voltages may not be kept strictly
at this value. A range of say 0.95–1.05 p.u. may be considered acceptable. A
generation bus (PV bus), is considered to be a voltage controlled bus and its
voltage is set by the operators. The reactive power of a generating unit is con-
trolled by changing its reference set point.
An index is constructed to show an acceptable performance for voltage profile.
The following index, Pprof, is considered in this chapter
X
N
Pprof ¼ ðVi  Viset Þ2
i¼1
 ð10:1Þ
1:0 i 2 PQ buses
Vi;set ¼
Vset point i 2 PV buses

where Vi is the voltage magnitude of bus i, Viset is the reference voltage of bus i and
N is the system number of buses.
The sum may be calculated for all PV and PQ buses. In other words, if all PQ
bus voltage magnitudes are 1.0 p.u. and PV bus voltages are held at their
respective set points, the index would be zero. Further the voltage magnitudes are
from their set points, the higher the index would be. As a result, a lower Pprof is
considered favorable. This index can be easily calculated if an AC load flow is
performed.

10.2.2 Voltage Stability

Let us assume that for a typical power system, the voltage magnitude of a specific
bus is 1.0 p.u., once the bus apparent power is 2.0 ? j1.0 p.u. Now assume that the
load (both P and Q) is increased by 20% to 2.4 ? j1.2 p.u. If an ACLF is