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PROPOSAL FOR ON-LINE VOLTAGE STABILITY ASSESSMENT OF

FINNISH POWER SYSTEM USING NEURAL NETWORK

Sami Repo Juhani Bastman Ritva Hirvonen*

Tampere University of Technology Helsinki University of Technology Finnish Power Grid plc
Finland Finland Finland

Summary—Voltage stability is a limiting factor for
power transmission in many power systems. The neural
network (NN) based approach can be applied to on-line
voltage security and stability margin monitoring. In the
study special attention is focused on the optimum NN
structure, the quality of training data and the NN gen-
eralisation capability. The presented NN method ap-
proximates the voltage security and stability margin
with sufficient accuracy. The NN method is tested with a
NewEngland39 test network and an equivalent model of
Finnish grid.
The annual energy consumption in Finland is about 70
TWh. Installed production capacity is about 15 GW.
Energy consumption occurs mainly in southern part of
the country. The main part of energy is generated by
hydro and thermal (nuclear, coal, and gas) power plants.
Hydro power plants are situated mainly in the northern
Finland and thermal power plants in the coastal area of
southern Finland. 5 - 10% of energy is imported.
NORWAY

Keywords: Voltage security - Stability assessment -

Neural network

SWEDEN
1. INTRODUCTION
PETÄJÄSKOSKI
PIRTTIKOSKI
The purpose of a transmission grid is to transmit electric
energy from generators to customers. Nowadays this
task is becoming more business oriented. In addition to
earlier tasks, the power system planners and operators PIKKARALA
PYHÄNSELKÄ

must define how much additional power can be safely 400 kV lines
220 kV lines
transferred across the system. At the same time open VUOLIJOKI

system, increase in the number of power wheeling trans-

actions and environmental concerns are making the ALAPITKÄ

management of the power system more difficult. The

grid will also be more heavily stressed than before and SEINÄJOKI

will be operated by fewer operators. PETÄJÄVESI

HUUTOKOSKI

KANGAS- TOIVILA
ALA

Figure 1 presents the main Finnish grid. The Finnish ULVILA

YLLIKKÄLÄ
RUSSIA
grid has interconnections to Sweden, Norway, and Rus- OLKILUOTO HIKIÄ
KORIA
VIIPURI
HYVINKÄÄ
sia. The AC interconnections to Sweden are located in
KYMI
the northern Finland and the DC interconnection, Fenno- HELSINKI
LOVIISA

Skan HVDC link, is located in the south-western Fin- INKOO

land.
Figure 1. Finnish 400 kV and 220 kV grid.

*Finnish Power Grid plc, P.O. Box 530, 00101 Helsinki, Finland
The operational conditions of the Finnish grid are typi-
cal for a system with a long distance power transmis-
sion, where stability problems, especially voltage stabil-
ity, are to be considered when the power transmission
increases from Sweden to northern Finland and from the
northern to the southern Finland.
Voltage stability has become a major threat also in other
power systems in recent years. Utilities typically apply
computer programs to determine transmission capacity
in off-line mode for the most critical faults in some
operational situations. Voltage stability can be studied
by dynamic simulations or by using voltage stability
indices. Even today these methods may be too slow for
on-line applications.
Neural networks (NNs) can be used instead of more
traditional computation methods when the system is
complex or the actual mathematical function is un-
known. The NN is capable of modelling non-linear
functions. Its output can be calculated extremely fast.
Some studies on on-line voltage security [1,2] and sta-
bility assessment [3,4,5,6] have been published. Voltage
security and stability assessments are integrated into the
same NN based system in this study. The NN approach
is tested with NewEngland39 test network and equiva-
lent model of the Finnish grid.
2. ON-LINE VOLTAGE SECURITY AND
STABILITY MARGIN MONITORING
The power system should be operated continuously with
sufficient voltage stability margin and within voltage
limits. The proposed on-line monitoring approach is
planned to work in the power system operation centre.
The NN based approach determines the voltage security
and stability margin. The voltage stability margin can be
determined as a difference between the operation and
voltage collapse point. Similarly the voltage security
margin determines the distance to minimum voltage
point. The NN input vector consists of active and reac-
tive line flows and voltage amplitudes. The calculation
of voltage security and stability margin has two steps:

The determination of grid topology

The load and generation distribution selection.
The topology can be checked from the breaker status
information in the SCADA system. The pre-contingency
margin is determined for that topology. This margin
describes the loadability of current system. The determi-
nation of post-contingency margin needs the knowledge
of the most critical (n-1) contingency. The margin can
be calculated when the NN input data is calculated by
the load flow program for a new topology. One NN
model may contain several topologies or each topology
may have its own NN model. Figure 2 show an example
of pre- and post-contingency margins in the PU-curves.
normal operation
U point
voltage
most critical collapse
contingency point
pre-margin
post-margin
P
Figure 2. Voltage security and stability margins.
The load and generation distribution describes certain
power flows across the grid in stressed situation. In this
way the n-dimensional boundary of stable operation can
be determined in a certain direction. The ideal direction
is the minimum voltage collapse margin. It is dependent
on the power system operation point. Instead of deter-
mining minimum voltage collapse margins, it is prefer-
able to calculate several margins corresponding to dif-
ferent directions. The NN model may contain several
distributions or each distribution may have its own NN
model.
3. NEURAL NETWORK APPROACH
3.1 Neural network modelling
The multilayer perceptron NN is a parametric model,
which is fitted into the data by estimating NN parame-
ters. NN can approximate arbitrarily well any continu-
ous function when the number of hidden layer nodes is
sufficient and when there is ample of training data avail-
able. The training data must provide all information
needed to construct a desired input-output mapping. The
outputs of NN will approximate the target values.
If the amount of data is large, it is possible to have a
complex model with a large number of parameters.
However, if the number of parameters is too large, the
model fitness decreases. This is called an overfitting
problem. The best way to avoid overfitting is to use
ample of training data and limit the number of parame-
ters as strictly as possible. The input space dimension
(NN parameters between input and hidden layer) can be
restricted with correlation technique [7] and heuristic
measurement selection methods. The amount of meas-
urements can be reduced as far as the power system
states can be reliably separated from each other accord-
ing to approximated function.
Typical data never exactly fit the model that is being
used, even when the model is correct. It is necessary to
assess whether or not the model is appropriate. NN
parameter estimation is usually based on minimisation
of mean square error (MSE) criteria. The simplest
training algorithm is the back-propagation which is
based on the steepest descent gradient method. In sec-
ond-order algorithms (Levenberg-Marquardt (LM),
quasi-Newton and conjugate gradient) a quadratic ap-
proximation of the error function is used. They include
more information about the shape of the error function
than back-propagation.
3.2 Data creation
Input data creation was done with the load-flow based
PSS/E IPLAN program. Good quality data should in-
clude different operating points distributed across the
operation space. Smooth distribution is important, be-
cause holes or areas without any operation point reduce
the NN generalisation capability. The input data varia-
tion is done by changing load and power production [8].
The total load is a random number in a certain range
around the base case load. The load distribution coeffi-
cients are chosen proportionally to base case, randomly
or all loads are changed with the same amount of load
variation. The power factor is chosen randomly 0.9...1.
The total power production is equal to the total load.
Grid losses are taken from the slack bus. The generation
distribution coefficients are chosen randomly or propor-
tionately to the base case. After loads and power pro-
duction variation, the input case feasibility must be
checked with a load flow. At the same time the HV/MV
transformers’ automatic voltage control and the amount
of switched compensation are determined.
The load flow program can also be used to approximate
the voltage collapse point. The non-convergence point
of the load flow can approximate the voltage collapse
point quite well [8]. The proposed voltage collapse
algorithm is based on two loops. The loads and genera-
tion are increased in a certain direction. If the load flow
does not converge or minimum voltage is below the
voltage limit then previous loads and generation are
returned and the load increase step size is reduced.
Loads and generation are then increased again and a
new load flow is calculated.
3.3 Use of data and NN models
Data and NN models can be stored into database. Data-
base should be updated when power system has
changed. Data and NN models can be used in the on-line
mode through special control centre computer program
(to be realised in the future). In off-line mode they can
be loaded into Matlab or any other software to analyse
data or test models. The stored data can be also used for
many other purposes for example power system and
operation planning.
4. TEST RESULTS
4.1 Equivalent model of Finnish grid
4.1.1 Equivalent
For the studies the Finnish power system is equivalenced
as follows:

400 kV grid is modelled fully

220 kV and lower voltage grid is equivalenced

Power plants, which are smaller than 50 MVA are
equivalenced
Equivalencing procedure gives an equivalent of 123
nodes, 225 branches, and 51 generators.
4.1.2 Data analysis
The base case was winter i.e. heavily loaded case. Power
generation was quite high in the southern Finland i.e.
power transfer to the southern Finland was therefore
quite small. The total active load and generation was
varied 500 MW. Several generators acted as constant
power generators and produced constant amount of
power in all cases. The criteria for secure and stable
case was convergence of load flow and minimum volt-
age greater than 0.9 pu. The load and generation distri-
bution vector was selected to increase power transfer
from north to south. The elements of distribution vector
corresponding to loads in the northern Finland and gen-
erators in the southern Finland were zero. Figure 3
shows power transfer histograms in normal operation
points and in voltage minimum or collapse points for
transfer from Sweden (SWE) to Finland (FIN) and from
northern to southern Finland.
Training data was analysed based on figures like Figure
4. The voltage security and stability margin variation
can be seen from the first subfigure. The amount of data
vectors was 824, which is not enough for excellent re-
sults. Two other subfigures are examples of load and
voltage distributions in the training data.
4.1.3 Selection of optimum NN structure
The selection of input measurements for the NN model
is the most critical for NN modelling. The most NN
parameters are between input and hidden layers in this
approach, because the input vector size is quite large. To
reduce the number of NN parameters, the input vector
size has to reduce, too. The problem is to find out
”correct“ combination from almost infinite number of
combinations of input measurements. If all line flows
and voltages are used in the NN model, the model gen-
eralisation capability would be poor due to dimension-
ality problems. Some of these measurements contain no
information at all and some contain a lot of same infor-
mation, which should be removed.
 4.1.4 NN generalisation capability

Figure 5 presents the generalisation capability of the

chosen NN structure. The upper subfigure presents volt-
age security and stability margins in 100 different cases.
The margin is determined by equation 1, where PPoC is
vector of active loads in voltage collapse point,  is the
margin,
is the load and generation distribution vector
and P0 is vector of active loads in normal operation
point.
P PoC  
T P 0 (1)

Table I Training and test errors.

# of hidden Error [MSE]
Layer Training Test
nodes
Figure 3. Power transfer from Sweden to Finland and 2 1.4128*10-4 1.5983*10-4
-4
from northern to southern Finland. 3 1.2966*10 1.4962*10-4
-4
4 1.2798*10 1.5868*10-4
-4
1.2 5 1.2395*10 1.4118*10-4
-4
6 1.3232*10 1.8054*10-4
1.15 -4
7 1.0814*10 1.7137*10-4
Margin

-4
1.1 8 9.1188*10 1.6884*10-4
-5
1.05
9 9.2821*10 1.9139*10-4
-5
10 7.1040*10 4.0550*10-4
1
1.04 1.06 1.08 1.1 1.12 1.14 1.16
Total active load in NN input 4
x 10
The difference between the target value and NN output
150
is the approximation error. The lower subfigure is the
100 histogram of approximation error. Both subfigures show
100
# of cases

# of cases

clearly the capability of NN to model the voltage secu-

50
rity and stability margin.
50

The generalisation capability i.e. capability to approxi-

0 0
840 860 880
Active load in bus x
900 0.95 1 1.05 1.1 1.15
Voltage in bus x
mate unseen cases makes this approach very interesting.
In this way the power system voltage security and sta-
Figure 4. Training data analysis. bility can be monitored by approximating the voltage
security and stability margin. In this approach there will
The original size of input vector was 573 (active and always be some approximation error, but the error can
reactive line flows and voltages). To reduce the number be made very small in most cases. For example the
of input measurements reactive line flows were removed maximum error is 0.08 and the error distribution is cen-
from input vector. Then 181 measurements were re- tered around zero in this test.
moved by correlation analysis. After that ”unnecessary”
Target value = x NN output=o
measurements like generation bus voltages and constant
1.12
line flows were removed. Finally all measurements 1.1
which do not exist in reality i.e. measurements from 1.08
Margin

equivalent lines or buses were removed. The number of 1.06

1.04
input measurements was reduced to 71 by this statistical
1.02
and heuristical method. 1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Table I shows mean square errors for training and test
data sets with different number of hidden layer nodes. 25

The training error represents NN capability to approxi- 20

mate the unknown function and the test error represents

Histogram

15
NN generalisation capability. According to Table I NN 10
contains 5 hidden layer nodes. All tests were done by 5
PC (Pentium 133 MHz with 64 Mb RAM) with Matlab
0
and LM optimisation algorithm. −0.08 −0.06 −0.04 −0.02 0 0.02 0.04 0.06

Figure 5. NN generalisation capability.

4.2 NewEngland39 test network Target value = x NN output=o

1.5

4.2.1 Selection of optimum NN structure 1.4

Margin
1.3

The NewEngland39 bus network was tested to find out 1.2

how to select ”correct“ input measurements for the NN 1.1

model. The original size of input vector was 131 (46 1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
active and reactive line flows and 39 voltage). The input
vector reduction was tried by four different ways: 25

The input vector size was reduced to 92 by correla- 20
tion technique.

Histogram
15

The number of line flow measurements was further
10
reduced by omitting line flow measurements near
5
loads. In this way the input vector size was reduced
to 66. 0
−0.06 −0.05 −0.04 −0.03 −0.02 −0.01 0 0.01 0.02

The line flow measurements was reduced by omit-
ting line flow measurements near generators. In this Figure 6. NN generalisation capability, when the number
way the input vector size was reduced to 42. of input vector nodes is 40 and hidden layer nodes is 7.

When line flows were measured as in the previous
case, but voltages were measured only from load Figure 7 show an example of training data analysis. The
buses, the input vector size was reduced to 40. upper subfigures represent margin variation as a func-
tion of total active load in normal operation points. The
The training data consisted of normal topology data and margin cannot vary very much in high total load cases
the number of data vectors was 1185. The results are due to closeness of voltage minimum or collapse point.
presented in Table II. The test error is very low for all Two lower subfigures represent minimum voltage varia-
NNs. According to Table II NN contains 7 hidden layer tion. The left-hand side subfigure shows the minimum
nodes and the input vector size is 40. voltage distribution in normal operation points. The
right hand side subfigure shows the minimum voltage
Table II Effect of input vector size and number of hid- distribution in voltage minimum or collapse points.
den layer nodes into the test error.
Test error [MSE]
40 inputs 42 inputs 66 inputs 92 inputs 1.5

4 6.8485*10 9.8500*10 3.3465*10 2.0104*10-4

-5 -5 -4 1.4

5 7.7935*10-5 9.0951*10-5 3.1370*10-4 4.0329*10-4 1.3

Margin

6 6.4187*10-5 7.6902*10-5 2.5522*10-4 4.6235*10-4 1.2

7 6.3580*10-5 9.4004*10-5 2.6072*10-4 3.6422*10-4 1.1
8 7.9194*10-5 8.6800*10-5 3.0230*10-4 5.0107*10-4
1
5000 5200 5400 5600 5800 6000 6200 6400 6600 6800 7000
Total active load in NN input
Figure 6 presents the generalisation capability of the
800 2000
chosen NN structure. The upper subfigure presents volt-
age security and stability margins. 600 1500
# of cases

# of cases

400 1000
The lower subfigure is the histogram of approximation
error. The absolute value of approximation error is 200 500

about the same as in previous test. However, the mag- 0 0

0.8 0.85 0.9 0.8 0.85 0.9
nitude of margins are higher, therefore the error in per Minimum voltage in NN input Minimum voltage in PoC
cent is smaller than in previous test.
Figure 7. Training data analysis.
4.2.2 Test for several contingencies and distributions
The optimum size of hidden layer nodes was found out
The capability of the NN approach to model several to be 8. The input vector size was 40. Figure 8 presents
topologies and load and generation distributions where the results. This test shows clearly that one NN can be
tested next. There were 8615 data vectors in this test. used to model margin in these different topology and
Data contains cases from four different topologies and distribution cases. The approximation error is about the
three different directions. same as in normal topology test.
 Target value = x NN output=o Finnish grid. The results have proved the capability of
1.3 NNs and the proposed approach in on-line voltage secu-
rity and stability assessment.
1.2
Margin

1.1
6. REFERENCES
1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
[1] D. Niebur and A. J. Germond, “Power system
static security assessment using the Kohonen neu-
25 ral network classifier,” IEEE Transactions on
20 Power Systems, Vol. 7, No. 2, May 1992, pp. 865-
872.
Histogram

15
10
5
0
−0.06 −0.04 −0.02 0 0.02
Figure 8. NN generalisation capability with several
contingency cases and the load and generation distribu-
tions.
5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented the NN based static voltage secu-
rity and stability assessment for power system operation.
The NN modelling and data creation were presented for
this approach. Special attention was focused on selec-
tion of optimum NN structure and checking of training
data quality. Optimum NN structure can be found by
reducing the number of inputs and selecting the number
of hidden layer nodes based on approximation error.
Training data quality can be ensured by statistical data
analysis methods.
The proposed structure for voltage security and stability
assessment allows very flexible design for any power
system. The dimensionality problems of NN computa-
tion and voltage security and stability assessment were
solved by three different methods: topology, load and
generation distribution and NN model input selection.
The proposed NN based approach was studied with
NewEngland39 test network and equivalent model of
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well-initialized neural networks for static security
assessment of a large-scale power system,” Pro-
0.04 0.06 ceedings of the ISAP’97, July 1997, Seoul, Korea.
[3] D. Salatino et al., “Online voltage stability ass-
essment of load centers by using neural networks,”
Electric Power Systems Research, 32, 1995, pp.
165-173.
[4] A. A. El-Keib and X. Ma, “Application of artificial
neural networks in voltage stability assessment,”
IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 10,
No. 4, Nov. 1995, pp. 1890-1896.
[5] K. Yabe et al., “Conceptual designs of AI-based
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[6] S. Repo et al., “Multilayer perceptron neural net-
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[7] S. Muknahallipatna and B. H. Chowdhury, “Input
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