Application of Network Structural Properties of a Power System for Voltage Stability Assessment in an Electric Power Grid

The problem posed by total blackout experienced in some parts of the globe due to power system (PS) voltage instability has been traced to continuous increase in power demand. Thus, it becomes imperative to assess voltage stability in a power grid. In this paper, a method which depends on the network characteristics of a power system is investigated. This method makes use of the admittance matrix between load to load nodes in an interconnected power system. Eigenvalue decomposition method is applied on the submatrix of the admittance matrix partitioned into generator and load nodes. A comparison of the suggested method with a load flow based voltage collapse proximity index (VCPI) is also carried out. The effectiveness of methods considered is tested on both the IEEE 30-bus and the Southern Indian 10-bus power networks. Results obtained shows that, the proposed method could assist and serve as a great tool in the investigation of voltage stability in a system as it decreases computational burdens.