A Study on Wide-area Measurement-based Approaches for Power System Voltage Stability

With the development of wide-area monitoring system (WAMS) enabled by the synchrophasor technology, measurement-based approaches for power system voltage stability and control have been widely discussed in recent years. Based on high-frequency synchronized measurement signals collected from phasor measurement units (PMUs), these approaches have great potentials to significantly improve the situational awareness and to effectively guide the controls of interconnected modern power systems.

If compared with conventional model-based voltage stability assessment (VSA) and control methods, the measurement-based methods are relatively new. Although their simplicity and independence of system models make them suitable for online deployment, the applications of these measurement-based methods are not as well explored as their model-based counterparts, which have been improved and matured over several decades. Therefore, the motivation of this dissertation is to explore new applications of measurement-based voltage stability assessment and control.

In this dissertation, first, a comparative study on existing measurement-based approaches is provided; second, a hybrid VSA approach for N-1 contingency is proposed; third, measurement-based wide-area loading margin sensitivity suitable for voltage stability control is presented with a sample control study; fourth, mitigation approaches for overestimation of voltage stability margin when using coupled single-port circuit are proposed; and fifth, voltage dependent load model is integrated into measurement-based voltage stability analysis to provide a practical and accurate assessment of voltage stability margin.