Recent Trends in Power System Stability:
Recent Trends in Power System Stability in design of large alternators tend towards lower short circuit ratio (SCR = 1/Xd), which is achieved by reducing machine air gap with consequent savings in machine mmf, size, weight and cost. Reduction in the size of rotor reduces inertia constant, lowering thereby the stability margin. The loss in stability margin is made up by such features as lower reactance lines, faster circuit breakers and faster excitation systems as discussed already, and a faster system valving to be discussed later in this article.
A stage has now been reached in technology whereby the methods of improving stability, discussed above, have been pushed to their limits, e.g., clearing times of circuit breakers have been brought down to virtually irreducible values of the order of two cycles. With the trend to reduce machine inertias there is a constant need to determine availability, feasibility and applicability of new methods for maintaining and/or improving system stability. A brief account of some of the Recent Trends in Power System Stability methods of maintaining stability is given below:
HVDC Links:
Increased use of HVDC links employing thyristors would alleviate stability problems. A dc link is asynchronous, i.e., the two ac system at either end do not have to be controlled in phase or even be at exactly the same frequency as they do for an ac link, and the power transmitted can be readily controlled. There is no risk of a fault in one system causing loss of stability in the other system.
Breaking Resistors:
For improving stability where clearing is delayed or a large load is suddenly lost, a resistive load called a breaking resistor is connected at or near the generator bus. This load compensates for at least some of the reduction of load on the generators and so reduces the acceleration. During a fault, the resistors are applied to the terminals of the generators through circuit breakers by means of an elaborate control scheme. The control scheme determines the amount of resistance to be applied and its duration. The breaking resistors remain on for a matter of cycles both during fault clearing and after system voltage is restored.
Short Circuit Current Limiters:
These are generally used to limit the short circuit duty of distribution lines. These may also be used in long transmission lines to modify favourably the transfer impedance during fault conditions so that the voltage profile of the system is somewhat improved, thereby raising the system load level during the fault.
Turbine Fast Valving or Bypass Valving:
The two methods just discussed above are an attempt at replacing the system load so as to increase the electrical output of the generator during fault conditions. Another Recent Trends in Power System Stability method of improving the stability of a unit is to decrease the mechanical input power to the turbine. This can be accomplished by means of fast valving, where the difference between mechanical input and reduced electrical output of a generator under a fault, as sensed by a control scheme, initiates the closing of a turbine valve to reduce the power input. Briefly, during a fast valving operation, the interceptor valves are rapidly shut (in 0.1 to 0.2 sec) and immediately reopened. This procedure increases the critical switching time long enough so that in most cases, the unit will remain stable for faults with stuck-breaker clearing times. The scheme has been put to use in some stations in the USA.
Full Load Rejection Technique:
Fast valving combined with high-speed clearing time will suffice to maintain stability in most of the cases. However, there are still situations where stability is difficult to maintain. In such cases, the normal procedure is to automatically trip the unit off the line. This, however, causes several hours of delay before the unit can be put back into operation. The loss of a major unit for this length of time can seriously jeopardize the remaining system.
To remedy these situations, a full load rejection scheme could be utilized after the unit is separated from the system. To do this, the unit has to be equipped with a large steam bypass system. After the system has recovered from the shock caused by the fault, the unit could be resynchronized and reloaded. The main disadvantage of this method is the extra cost of a large bypass system.