Effect of semiconductor-controlled voltage injection by UPFC and ULTC on power system stability

Commercial availability of various power semiconductor switches indicates proliferation of power electronic based apparatus in utility power systems. Furthermore, existing power system apparatus, e.g. mechanical phase shifters and mechanical tap changing transformers, will be retrofitted to utilize higher switching speed of semiconductor switches. A group of these apparatus, i.e., unified power flow controller (UPFC), static phase shifter (SPS), under-load tap-changing (ULTC) transformer and static series capacitor (SSC), perform their respective functions by means of injecting series controlled voltages in power systems.;This thesis primarily investigates impacts of UPFC and semiconductor-controlled ULTC on voltage stability and angle stability phenomena. An eigen analysis approach is used for the studies. The eigen analysis results are validated by digital time-domain simulations using a transient stability software. Both the eigen analysis and the transient stability software tools are tailored to account for angle and voltage stability phenomena.;This thesis demonstrates that fast series voltage injection, for dynamic power flow regulation, can result in voltage dynamics and even voltage instability. This indicates that fast voltage injection by means of power electronic based apparatus can couple voltage stability and angle stability phenomena. To investigate this coupling phenomena, the voltage dependency of the load must be adequately represented in the load model. The reported studies in this work are based on representing the load by a combination of static and dynamic loads.