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Abstract—As a power system operating point alters its position to improve the damping ratio of a critical mode. Generation
due to variations in power injections, its small-signal stability re-dispatching can also be used to increase SSSMs. The
margin (SSSM) may decrease. Under this situation, a network scheme of adjusting controller parameters to improve dynamic
topology change via line switching can increase the SSSM. In this
paper, an online line switching method for maximizing the SSSM performance is based either on eigenvalue tracing [5] or on
is presented, taking into account both the solution quality and the rapid searching of the stability boundary [6], [7]. On the other
required computational speed. To balance the tradeoff between hand, the scheme of generation re-dispatching or network
speed and solution quality, the line switching method presented in topology control will lead the system to different operating
this paper is composed of three stages: 1) screening; 2) ranking; points [8]. Hence, both the equilibrium points and the asso-
and 3) detailed evaluation. The effectiveness of the presented
three-stage method is evaluated on IEEE standard power systems ciated critical modes need to be recomputed to ensure the
with promising results. effectiveness of the control.
Transmission line switching, also termed line switching, is
Index Terms—Small-signal stability, small-signal stability mar-
gin, line switching, optimal network topology, critical mode, Hopf an economical and effective measure for enhancing power
bifurcation. system operations and stability. In fact, relevant work over the
past thirty years demonstrates the effectiveness of line switch-
ing in providing exciting and promising solutions (see, for
I. I NTRODUCTION example, relieving line overloading [9]–[12], reducing trans-
mission losses and/or generation cost [13]–[16], and assisting
MALL-SIGNAL stability analysis of a power system
S determines the asymptotic stability of an operating point
and provides the internal dynamic characteristic of the system.
load recovery [17]). In fact, power system operators some-
times perform network topology to improve voltage profiles
and relieve system congestion [13]–[15]. The action of line
As power injections vary, the system moves to different equi-
switching can be viewed as trimming power networks into an
librium points, causing the system modes to continue varying.
efficient power network.
Hence, it is important to ensure the small-signal stability of
In this paper, we present another application of line switch-
power systems as power injections vary, say, due to continual
ing to improve power system stability; in particular, a novel
variations in load and renewable energy.
switching methodology to increase load margins to the small-
In the past, the task of enhancing power system small-signal
signal stability limit (SSSL) of a look-ahead power system is
stability mostly relied on the controller’s design for damp-
proposed. One popular approach for selecting certain lines to
ing oscillation modes [1]–[3]. Coordinated stabilizer tuning
switch out is to formulate the problem as constrained, mixed-
that considers multiple operating conditions is proposed, for
integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) and apply available
example, in [4]. However, controller design targeted for one or
commercial solvers, such as BARON or CPLEX, to solve the
multiple operating points may fail to enhance the small-signal
problem. This approach may be effective for certain applica-
stability margin (SSSM) for other operating points. Hence,
tions, but may not be suitable for online application due to its
developing online control to enhance the small-signal stabil-
heavy computational requirements.
ity of power systems is desirable, considering the nature of
To overcome the combinatorial nature of the line switching
varying operating points.
problem, which is a MINLP, we have developed a three-
There are several ways to enhance the SSSM of power
stage methodology employing the strategies of screening,
systems. One involves adjusting several controller parameters
ranking, and evaluating to achieve high speed (for online
computation) and high-quality line switching solutions to
Manuscript received June 2, 2016; revised August 31, 2016 and improve the voltage stability of power systems [18]. The
November 18, 2016; accepted January 14, 2017. Date of publication
January 23, 2017; date of current version August 21, 2018. This work three-stage methodology also determines multiple high-quality
was supported by China Scholarship Council under Grant 201506285074. line switching solutions from which operators can select as
Paper no. TSG-00745-2016. desired.
C. Li and Z. Du are with the Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Smart Grid,
Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China, and also with the Department Given the look-ahead forecasting of load demands and the
of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China generation rescheduling scheme, the SSSM indicates the load
(e-mail: ctali@163.com; zcdu@xjtu.edu.cn). level at which a Hopf bifurcation occurs [19]–[22]. Switching
H.-D. Chiang is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA (e-mail: hc63@cornell.edu). out transmission lines will alter the SSSM of the system.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSG.2017.2656885 Given a set of candidate lines that can be switched off, the
1949-3053 c 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
LI et al.: ONLINE LINE SWITCHING METHOD FOR ENHANCING SSSM OF POWER SYSTEMS 4427
where Λ is the generalized eigenvalue set, Re(Λ) determines The major data inputs required for the proposed methodol-
the maximum real part of Λ, and n(•) denotes the difference ogy are (1) the current network topology and current system
in network topology in the number of line switches needed to state, say, from the state estimator, (2) predictive data that
alter the network topology Nbase to N . include the look-ahead (say, 30 minutes) forecasting load and
The problem of determining line switching for the SSSM generation reschedule, and (3) the list of candidate lines to be
in an online environment is challenging because the required switched out.
computational effort can be extraordinary. Hence, computa- Stage 1 (Screening): In this stage, the increment of the
tional speed and solution quality are key metrics for solving critical mode λ = λN − λ, where λ is the critical mode
the online line switching problem of increasing the SSSM. We on the Hopf bifurcation point by switching out each candi-
propose a 3-stage methodology to solve the online line date line, will be estimated using a linear sensitivity-based
switching problem for the SSSM. method for fast implementation. All candidate lines will be
sorted in this stage so that lines with minimum Re(λ) will
be arranged at the top of the list. For the ranked candidate
III. A RCHITECTURE OF THE O NLINE lines, it satisfies that
L INE S WITCHING M ETHODOLOGY
For the look-ahead base case, it satisfies Re(Λ (J, T)) = 0 Re λ1 ≤ · · · ≤ Re λq < 0 ≤ Re λq+1 · · ·
when μ increases to μH . Generally, a pair of conju-
gate eigenvalues will lie on the imaginary axis, as with ≤ Re λk . (8)
λ1 in Fig. 3. If the network topology is altered so that
Re(Λ (J, T)) < 0, then the SSSM of the look-ahead base The superscript λ denotes the ranked number of the line.
case will be increased. Obviously, the imaginary eigenval- The top-ranked q1 (q1 < q) lines will be sent to the next stage
ues need to be enhanced first. However, topology change for ranking.
may cause other modes to become critical or highly sen- Stage 2 (Ranking): For each post-switching system, the most
sitive, as with λ2 in Fig. 3. In lieu of these problems, sensitive modes as well as its sensitivity to μ will be computed.
a three-stage methodology for solving online line switching The SSSM of the post-switching system, μH , will be estimated
problem (7) is proposed. The three stages are composed of (1) using a linear sensitivity-based method, and all selected lines
a screening stage, (2) a ranking stage, and (3) an evaluating will be ranked in this stage so that
stage.
Given a list of candidate lines that can be switched off, a lin- N (1) N (p) N (p+1) N (q1 )
ear sensitivity-based method is applied in the screening stage μH ≥ · · · ≥ μH ≥ μH ≥ μH ≥ · · · ≥ μH . (9)
to quickly estimate the critical mode deviation after switch-
ing out each candidate line. The ranking stage selects the top The top-ranked p1 (p1 < p) lines will be sent to the next stage
effective lines according to the result obtained by the screen- for identification.
ing stage. The evaluating stage performs a detailed calculation Stage 3 (Evaluating): Perform the exact numerical com-
for each top-ranked line to identify high-quality line switching putation to obtain the SSSMs of post-switching systems for
solutions. each top-ranked line and identify the top few line switching
It is usually very difficult to show that a solution is glob- solutions.
ally optimal. Likewise, we cannot prove that the network The key outputs of the proposed 3-stage methodology
topologies determined by the proposed online methodology are (1) the top line switching solutions for the look-ahead
are globally optimal and hence, we term them high-quality power system and (2) the corresponding SSSM of the
solutions. each (top) post-switching system.
LI et al.: ONLINE LINE SWITCHING METHOD FOR ENHANCING SSSM OF POWER SYSTEMS 4429
Fig. 7. The structure of an original Jacobian matrix and the sensitivity matrix
of the New-England system.
TABLE I
T HE F IRST 10 L INES W ITH E STIMATED AND ACTUAL E IGENVALUE
D EVIATION OF THE P OST-S WITCHING S YSTEM
TABLE II
SSSM S OF THE P OST-S WITCHING S YSTEM
TABLE V
SSSM OF THE P OST-S WITCHING S YSTEM
Fig. 12. Eigenvalue loci of a 57-machine system due to increases in load Fig. 13. Eigenvalues of the critical loading point and those of the
and generation. corresponding post-switching system for the 57-machine system.
TABLE VIII
TABLE VI
E LAPSED T IME OF A LL T EST S YSTEMS
T HE T OP -R ANKED L INES W ITH E STIMATED AND ACTUAL E IGENVALUE
D EVIATION OF THE P OST-S WITCHING S YSTEM
D. Discussion
Evaluation work for all test systems was performed on
a desktop computer with Intel Core i5 CPU and a 64-bit
TABLE VII operating system. Detailed information on the elapsed time
SSSM OF THE P OST-S WITCHING S YSTEM
is shown in Table VIII. Since the generalized eigenval-
ues of (J, T) are equal to the eigenvalue of the state
matrix A, in practical implementation of the method, the
calculation of generalized eigenvalues is reduced to com-
puting the eigenvalues of A by using the Matlab function
‘eig’. The order in Table VIII denotes the order of the state
matrix.
In addition, compared to an exhaustive method, the
ranking stage to estimate the post-switching system SSSMs. proposed method has an obvious advantage in computing time.
In the ranking stage, the Newton method failed to compute Taking the 10-machine system as an example, the total elapsed
post-switching system equilibrium points for 2 lines, and an time for the exhaustive method is 5.82s. However, only 1.73s
additional 6 lines were verified as being unstable. The results is cost by the proposed method.
for the other 7 lines are shown in Table VI. The 3 top-ranked The effectiveness of line switching to enhance power system
lines obtained in the ranking stage are then sent to the eval- SSSMs depends on the power system topology, operating
uating stage for detailed evaluation. The results are shown in condition, and the forecasting load demands and generation
Table VII. dispatching. It is still possible that, for some power systems
It can be observed from Table VII that switching out with specific operating conditions, switching any single line
line 6 or 14 can improve the SSSM of the system by more than will lead to a decrease in the SSSM. Although the effect
20%, and switching out line 14 is the best choice. The eigen- of the line switching method will differ for different cases,
value loci of the post-switching system, with respect to the 14th the proposed method can be applied to identify high quality
line, are shown in Fig. 13. For the post-switching system, the lines.
Hopf bifurcation is determined by mode −0.5513 ± j2.2925, In some cases, the action of switching out a single line may
which arrives first at the imaginary axis due to the increasing be insufficient to increase a desired SSSM if two or more sen-
load. sitive modes move close to the imaginary axis as μ increases
4434 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 9, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2018
[23] H. D. Chiang, W. Ma, R. J. Thomas, and J. S. Thorp, “A tool Hsiao-Dong Chiang (M’87–SM’91–F’97) received the Ph.D. degree in elec-
for analyzing voltage collapse in electric power systems,” in trical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California at
Proc. 10th Power Syst. Comput. Conf., Graz, Austria, Aug. 1990, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA. He is a Professor with the School of Electrical
pp. 601–611. and Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. He and his
[24] H.-D. Chiang, A. J. Flueck, K. S. Shah, and N. Balu, “CPFLOW: A prac- research team have published over 350 papers in refereed journals and con-
tical tool for tracing power system steady-state stationary behavior due ference proceedings. He holds 17 U.S. and overseas patents and several
to load and generation variations,” IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 10, consultant positions. He has authored two books entitled Direct Methods for
no. 2, pp. 623–634, May 1995. Stability Analysis of Electric Power Systems: Theoretical Foundation, BCU
Methodologies, and Applications (Wiley: New York, NY, USA, 2011) and
(with L. F. C. Alberto) Stability Regions of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems:
Theory, Estimation, and Applications (Cambridge Univ. Press: Cambridge,
U.K., 2015). He has served as an Associate Editor for several IEEE
T RANSACTIONS and journals.
Chongtao Li received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering Zhengchun Du (M’12) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 2005 and 2013, respectively. engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 1983, 1986, and
He is currently a Lecturer of electrical engineering with Xi’an Jiaotong 1993, respectively. He is currently a Professor of electrical engineering with
University. His research interest includes power system small-signal stability Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. His research interest includes power
analysis and control. system stability analysis and control.