Power System Stability

Lecture – Small Signal Stability

Abdul Basit
US Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS-E)
University of Engineering & Technology (UET), Peshawar

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Small-Signal stability
• Small-Signal Stability is the ability of a power system to
maintain synchronism when subjected to small
disturbances.
• A disturbance is considered to be small if the equations
describing the resulting response of the system may be
linearized for the purpose of analysis.
• Instability, due to the small disturbances, can be of two
forms:
– Steady increase in the rotor angle due to lack of synchronizing
torque.
– Rotor oscillations of increasing amplitude due to lack of
sufficient damping torque.
• In today’s power systems, the lack of sufficient damping
torque is usually the cause of small-signal stability
problems.
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• The behavior of a dynamic system, such as a power system
may be described by a set of n first order differential
equations:

• This can be written by using vector notations:

• n is the order of the system, and r is the number of inputs.

The column vector x is the state vector and its entries xi are
referred to as the state variables. The column vector u is the
input vector to the system.
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State space representation

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Concept of state in state space representation

• The concept of state is fundamental to the state-space

approach.
• Any set of n linearly independent system variables (state
variables) may be used to describe the state of the system.
• They form a minimal set of dynamic variables that together
with the inputs to the system, provide a complete
description of the system behavior.
• Any other system variable may be determined from the
knowledge of the states.
• Whenever the system is not in equilibrium, or whenever
the input is changed, the system state will change with
time.
• The set of points traced by the system state in the state
space as the state changes is called the state trajectory.
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State Space Representation
Equilibrium points
• The equilibrium points (singular points) are those points
where all the state derivatives ẋi are simultaneously zero.
• The equilibrium or singular points satisfy therefore the
following:
f(x0) = 0
• where x0 is the state vector at the equilibrium point.
• A Linear system has only one equilibrium state (if the system
matrix is nonsingular).
• For a nonlinear systems, there may be more than one
equilibrium point.

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Stability of a Dynamic System
• The stability of a linear system is independent of the input,
and the state of a stable system with zero input will always
return to the origin of the state space.
• The stability of a nonlinear system, depends on the type
and magnitude of the input and the initial state.
• In control theory, it is common practice to classify the
stability of a nonlinear system in the following categories:
Local Stability: The system is said to be locally stable about an
equilibrium point if, when subjected to small perturbation, it
remains within a small region surrounding the equilibrium
point.
Finite stability: If the state of the system remains within a
finite region R, it is said to be stable within R.
Global Stability: The system is said to be globally stable if R
includes the entire finite space.
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Stability of Dynamic Systems – Linearization

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Stability of Dynamic Systems – Linearization

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Stability of Dynamic Systems – Linearization

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Stability of Dynamic Systems – Linearization

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Eigenvalues

Eigenvalues are a special set of scalars associated with

a linear system of equations (i.e., a matrix equation)
that are sometimes also known as characteristic roots,
characteristic values (Hoffman and Kunze 1971), proper
values, or latent roots (Marcus and Minc 1988, p. 144)

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Eigenvalues

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Eigenvalues and stability

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Eigenvalues and stability

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 Single-Machine Infinite Bus System

Analysis of a simple system, single machine connected to a large

system through some transmission lines, is very useful for the
purpose of understanding basic effects and concepts related to
small-signal stability
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Single-Machine Infinite Bus System

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Single-Machine Infinite Bus System

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Single-Machine Infinite Bus System

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Single-Machine Infinite Bus System

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Single-Machine Infinite Bus System

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 Single-Machine Infinite Bus System
(Example 12.2, Page 732, P kundur)

The objective of this example is to analyze the small-signal

characteristics of the system about the steady-state operating
condition following the loss of CCT 2.

Question:
1. Write the linearized state equations of the system.
2. Determine the eigenvalues, damped frequency of oscillation in
Hz, damping ratio and undamped natural frequency when Kd =
{0,−10, 10}. USPCAS-E 22
Solution – Example

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Solution – Example

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Solution – Example

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Solution – Example

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Solution – Example

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 Effects of Synchronous Machine Field Circuit
Dynamics

• In the previous slides, the classical model of the synchronous was used for the
small-signal analysis of the single machine infinite bus system.
• In the following, the level of detail is increased by considering the system
performance when the effect of field flux variations is included.
• The effect of the damper windings is neglected in this case
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Effects of Synchronous Machine Field Circuit
Dynamics
• In order to construct the system matrix that relates the rotor
position to an appropriate reference, the author uses more
that 30 equations on pages 737-744.
• The resulting system matrix when the field flux variations are
taken into consideration can be written as

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 Effects of Synchronous Machine Field Circuit
Dynamics

In the figure above, a block diagram of the small-signal

performance of the system is given. The figure is drawn
for constant Efd.
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Effects of Synchronous Machine Field Circuit
Dynamics

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Effects of Synchronous Machine Field Circuit
Dynamics

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Effects of Synchronous Machine Field Circuit
Dynamics

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Summary so far
• In the previous slides, we have analyzed a single-machine
infinite bus system when the level of detail of the
synchronous machine model has been varied.
• The results from the analysis differ slightly, all dependent
on the detail level of the synchronous machine model.
• It could be seen that the damping of the oscillations was
greater when we considered the field flux dynamics
compared to the classical model.
• When the system model was sufficiently detailed, both an
oscillating mode and a non-oscillating mode appeared.
• In order to avoid small-signal instability, all of the modes in
the system must have a positive damping (that is an
eigenvalue with a negative real part).

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Introduction to Effects of Excitation System

• In the previous slides, a state space model for the single

machine infinite bus system was derived. In the model, the
excitation voltage was considered to be constant.
• Now, the model will be extended so that the effects that an
excitation system has on the small signal performance of the
system can be analyzed.
• The figure below shows the block diagram of a excitation
system with automatic voltage control (AVR).

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State space model – Excitation System
• The procedure for the formulation of the state space model is given
on pages 758-761 (P Kundur).
• The resulting state space model, including the excitation system has
the following form:

• The field voltage variations ΔEfd is no longer a control input, since

the voltage is automatically regulated.
• It can be seen that the state matrix now includes a new state
variable ΔV1 which is the measured variations in the terminal
voltage.
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Excitation System – block diagram

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 Effect of AVR on Synchronizing and Damping
Torque Components
• For low external reactance and low generator output the effect of
the AVR is to introduce a negative synchronizing torque component
and a positive damping torque component.
• The reduction of the synchronizing torque component in such cases
is usually of no concern since the total synchronizing torque is so
high that the reduction has a little effect.
• On the other hand, for high values of external reactance and a high
generator output the AVR introduces a positive synchronizing torque
component and a negative damping torque component.
• In such cases, the AVR has negative effect on the small-signal
stability of the system and could eventually lead to oscillatory
instability.
• An effective way to meet this conflicting performance of the exciter
is to provide a power system stabilizer
USPCAS-E (PSS) in the system 38
Power System Stabilizer (PSS)

• The small signal stability problem is usually one of insufficient

damping of system oscillations.
• The power system stabilizers (PSS) are the most cost effective
means of solving small signal stability problems.
• The basic function of a PSS is to add some damping to the
generator rotor oscillations by controlling the generators
excitation using auxiliary stabilizing signal.
• In order to provide an additional damping, the stabilizer must
produce a component of electrical torque in phase with the
rotor speed deviations.

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Block Diagram – Power System Stabilizer

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State Space Description – PSS

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Example – effect of PSS

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Example – effect of PSS

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Small Signal Stability Problems – Local, Global

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 Local Problems
• Local problem involve a small part of the system. The local
problems may characterized as:
– Local plant oscillations where a single generator oscillates
against the rest of the power system (similar to the oscillations
in single machine infinite bus system).
– Inter-machine or interplant oscillations are associated with
oscillations between few generators, that are located close to
each other.
– Control modes are associated with controls of equipment
such as generator excitation systems, HVDC converters and
static var compensators. The problem associated with control
modes are due to inadequate tuning of the control systems.
• Usually, the local plant oscillations and the inter-machine
oscillations have a frequencies in the range of 0.7Hz to
2.0Hz USPCAS-E 45
Global Problems
• Global Small-Signal stability problems are caused by the
interaction among a large groups of generators and have a
widespread effect.
• The global problem involve oscillations of large group of
generators in one area against a group of generators in
another area. Such oscillation are referred to at Inter area
mode oscillations.
• Large power systems have usually two distinct forms of
inter area oscillations:
a) A very low frequency mode (0.1 − 0.3Hz) where all generators
in the system are involved. The system is practically split into
two parts, were generators in one part swing against the
generators in the other part.
b) Higher frequency modes (0.4 − 0.7Hz) where subgroups of
generators oscillate against other subgroups of generators
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