STARTING WITH THE NAME OF ALLAH,

THE MOST BENEFICIENT AND THE

MOST MERCIFUL
Presented by
SHARIQ SHAIKH
LECTURER
EED, NEDUET
 REACTIVE POWER
IMBALANCE AND ITS
IMPACT IN THE SYSTEM
There can be many disturbances that occur in Power System and may create an impact
of huge financial loss:
o Impulses.
o Transients.
o Voltage sag.
o Voltage swell.
o Momentary interruptions.
o Voltage unbalance.
o Harmonics.
o Voltage fluctuations.
Following are the few cases illustrating the cost of short duration power interruptions:

• In a glass plant, an interruption of five cycles can cost $ 200,000.

• A major network center reports that a 2-sec interruption can cost some $ 600,000.

• In some factories like refineries and polymer industries may require cleaning of lines
damaged work estimated to be about $ 50,000.

• An auto-maker estimated that total loss from momentary power interruptions at all
its plants run to about $ 10 million a year.
This is caused by the factors outside the control of the utilities like lightning strokes.
Their rise time and peak voltage is governed by the system parameters and
dynamics of the stored energy. The fall time is controlled by the peak voltage and
the existing situation of the discharge system. The voltage falls exponentially.

Standard lightning
impulse has wave form
as 1.2/50 micro-sec.

Standard switching
impulse has the wave
form as 250/2500 micro-
sec.
 A sudden switching of the capacitive or inductive apparatus creates transients in the
system. They have longer duration as compared to that of those under the headings
of impulses.

Transients do not creates dielectric breakdown but they definitely provide stress to
the system. The best remedial action for these transients is provided by the
lightning arrestors. (other devices include arcing rods/horns)
KV

Es

Residual voltage Z Vs

Time (Es – Vs)/Z

It is the decrease in the rms value of the voltage in period of half cycle to a minute.
It is caused by the voltage drops due to fault currents or the heavy motor starting. It
can trigger shutdown of process controllers and computer systems.

It is defined as the increase in the voltage level between 1.1 to 1.8 p.u. in the period
ranging from half a cycle to minute. Its reason can be load throw off or over reactive
power in the system.

It is defined as decrease in the supply voltage to less than 0.1 p.u. for a period of
time not exceeding 1 minute. It can be caused by the faults, control mal-functions or
equipment failures.

Note:

All these disturbances can be classified into three types, depending on their
durations. Instantaneous, momentary and temporary.
It is the decrease in the rms value of the voltage to less than 90 % at the power
frequency for the duration longer than 1 minute. It can be caused by the switching
of heavy load. These are also referred sometime as the non-technical term “brown-
out”. It can make the scenario worse for the utility as the storage power of the
capacitor is proportional to the terminal voltages. Therefore at the time of need
they are unable to deliver the required compensation in terms of reactive power.

It is the increase in the rms value of the voltage to 110 % at the power frequency for
the duration longer than 1 minute. It can be caused by the switching off heavy load
or energizing the capacitor bank.

Note:
Incorrect tap position of the transformers can cause the scenario of under or over
voltages. As they last for a longer duration they produces severe stresses.

Both the disturbances can be classified into three types, depending on their
durations. Instantaneous, momentary and temporary.
Various conditions for the under voltages are:

 Overloading of the supply transformers.

 Excessive voltage drops across a long feeder.
 Poor power factor of the connected load.
 Interval in auto re-closing.
 Starting of large HP induction motors.

The problems that appears due to the low voltage are:

 It reduces the capacity storage of the power capacitors.

 User tries to boost up the voltage through the inductive aid “constant voltage
transformers”, while utility tries to boost up the voltage by changing the taps of
the distribution transformer. These measures although resolve the problem at
the user side while on the HV utility side it causes harmonics and further depress
the situation.

Solutions:

The power capacitors primary application in both shunt and series compensation
lies in the voltage application.
Industrial arc furnaces have high fluctuating currents. If transformers have high
impedance it will cause significant voltage drop and the voltage will fluctuates a lot.

In case of the welding a converter releases a burst of high amount of energy at a

controlled frequency over a few seconds and then it stops. There is a voltage flicker.

Equipments that suffer from the voltage flickers includes microprocessor based
systems and computers specially.

Voltage fluctuations are mentioned in % of their fundamental magnitude.

An oscillatory transient consists of a voltage or current whose instantaneous value

changes polarity rapidly. It can be categorized as low, medium and high. They are
caused by capacitor bank energization (single or back to back), cable switching,
commutation transients etc.
 Short duration interruptions
Instantaneous
Sag 0.5 to 30 cycles 0.1 to 0.9 p.u
Swell 0.5 to 30 cycles 1.1 to 1.8 p.u
Momentary
Interruption 0.5 to 30 cycles < 0.1 p.u
Sag 30cycles to 3 seconds 0.1 to 0.9 p.u
Swell 30cycles to 3 seconds 1.1 to 1.4 p.u
Temporary
Interruption 3 seconds to 1 minute < 0.1 p.u
Sag 3 seconds to 1 minute 0.1 to 0.9 p.u
Swell 3 seconds to 1 minute 1.1 to 1.2 p.u

Long duration interruptions

Interruption, sustained > 1 minute < 0.1 p.u
Under-voltages > 1 minute 0.8 p.u
Over-voltages > 1 minute 1.1-1.2 p.u
Major reasons for the frequency variations are: [ ±3 % ]

 Non-availability of the spinning reserve.

 Reduces generation due to unavailability of some plants.
 Shut down and breakdown of power station auxiliaries.
 Reduced hydel potential due to low level of lakes at peak time.

The problems that appears due to the low frequency are:

 Reduction in motor speed.

 Higher magnetic induction.
 Higher harmonic currents.
 Over-heating.

The problems that appears due to the high frequency are:

 Over-speeding of motors.
 Over-fluxing of transformer core, leading to overheating, deterioration and
therefore premature failure of insulation.
 Harmonics.
 Significant mechanical vibrations in turbine.
SOURCES SINKS
SOURCES: SINKS:
Synchronous condensers, Reactors, Loads,
Generators, Capacitors, Line Transformers, Losses, Tie
Charging. Lines when loaded heavily.
Types of Sources
Basically there are two types of reactive power sources namely dynamic and static reactive
power sources.

Dynamic Reactive Power Sources

Equipment and devices, which are capable to respond to the reactive power changes
quickly by injecting or providing the sufficient amount of reactive power into the electrical
system. These are of high cost and some of these devices are given below.

• Synchronous generators:

Depending on the excitation voltage, active and reactive power generated is varied in
synchronous machines. AVR’s (Automatic Voltage Regulators) are used to control the
reactive power over an operating range in these machines.

• Synchronous condensers:

These are types of small generators, used to produce the reactive power without
producing real power.

• Solid state devices:

These include power electronic converters and devices such as FACTS by SVC devices.
Static Reactive Power Sources

These are low cost devices and response to reactive power variation is somewhat
less than the dynamic power devices. Some of the static resources are given below.

• Capacitive and inductive compensators:

These consist of some shunt capacitors and inductors connected to the system to
adjust the system voltages. Capacitor generates the apparent power whereas
inductor absorbs the reactive power.

• Underground cables and overhead lines:

Current flowing through the cables and overhead lines produces the net magnetic
flux which generates the reactive power. A lightly loaded line acts as reactive
power generator while heavily loaded line acts as absorber of reactive power.
 Vs < δ Vr < 0°
Power Injection

Generation Transmission Distribution

• Synchronous Generators:
 can generate or absorb Q depending on excitation
 capability limited by field current, armature current, and end-region
heating limits
 automatic voltage regulator continuously adjusts excitation to control
armature voltage
 primary source of voltage support!
• Overhead lines:
 The maximum power delivered depends on the reactance.
 Thermal limit of the transmission line is proportional to both active and
reactive power.
 To increase the active power, reactive power must needed to be properly
regulate over the transmission channel.
 Transmission lines at loads below natural or surge impedance load (SIL),
produce Q, while at loads above SIL, absorb Q. SIL also called natural loading.
 There is a point which shows that for this much length of the transmission line
the requirement of the reactive power is zero to transfer the active power.
Thus it means that the reactive power generated by the line is absorbed by
the line itself.
 The impedance of transmission line at this point is said to be the
Characteristic Impedance. To transfer Q at the value above SIL compensation
is required. [400-600 ohm]
 It provide advantages of flat profile of voltage, so the voltage stress is uniform
throughout the length with unity power factor.

• Underground cables:
– have high SIL due to high capacitance
– always loaded below SIL, and hence generate Q
[40-60 ohms]
 This particular line has a SIL of 450 MW. Therefore is the line is
loaded to 450 MW (with no Mvar) flow, the Mvar produced by the
line will exactly balance the Mvar used by the line.
It should be remember that:

Also on the transmission line:

The increase in Vs and Vr by 10% causes the increase in power by 21 %. This

presents the solid reason for the increase in transmission voltages.

Q: Assume that there are four transmission lines of three phase lines of EHV
400KV with a line reactance of 50 ohms per phase and carrying 1000A current.
Find how much additional loss will be created in case of one line outage if the
load remains same?
Limits Affecting Max. Power Transfer
Thermal limits
– limit is due to heating of conductor and hence
depends heavily on ambient conditions.
– For many lines, sagging is the limiting constraint.
– Newer conductors/materials limit can limit sag.
– Trees grow, and will eventually hit lines if they are
planted under the line
– Thermal limits due to losses

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Tree Trimming: Before

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Tree Trimming: After

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 Other Limits Affecting Power Transfer

Angle limits
– while the maximum power transfer (steady-state
stability limit) occurs when the line angle
difference is 90 degrees, actual limit is
substantially less due to interaction of multiple
lines in the system and to keep reserve
Voltage stability limits
– as power transfers increases, reactive losses
increase as I2X. As reactive power increases the
voltage falls, resulting in a potentially cascading
voltage collapse.
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• Transformers:
 Absorb Q due to shunt magnetizing reactance and series leakage
inductance.
 Their reactive power requirement increases with the power delivery
through the transformer.

• Loads:
 A typical "load bus" is composed of a large number of devices
 Composite characteristics are normally such that a load bus absorbs Q
 Industrial loads usually have shunt capacitors to improve power factor

• As power flow conditions vary, reactive power requirements of

transmission network vary.
• Since Q cannot be transmitted over long distances, voltage control has to
be effected using special devices dispersed throughout the system