IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER APPARATUS AND SYSTEMS VOL. PAS-87, NO.

1 JANUARY 1968 49

Reactive Power and Its Control in a Large

Metropolitan Electric Supply System
W. J. BALET, MEMBER, IEEE, AND R. L. WEBB, FELLOW, IEEE

Abstract-In large metropolitan systems, the magnitude of re- becomes an acute problem and requires special attention on the
active power can become so great that controlling it and system part of Engineering and Operations to maintain stable voltage
voltage demands more than the ordinary requirements in equipment conditions at each voltage level of the system.
and operating techniques. On the Consolidated Edison system, The excess capacitive Mvars on the system during these light
one of the major problems concerns an excess of charging Mvars
from high-voltage cables during light load periods. At the outset this load periods must be absorbed to maintain satisfactory system
would seem to indicate that, with such excesses of capacitive Mvars, voltage. This can be accomplished in one or more of four ways:
few capacitors would be required in the distribution area of the 1) generator operation in the underexcited zone
system. This unfortunately is not the case, since it is desirable and 2) use of shunt reactors at strategic locations
economical to have the reactive power for distribution located as
near the load as possible, to maintain the megawatt capability of
3) circulation of reactive Mvars in selected system circuits
distribution stations and equipment at their maximum values. 4) switching off selected cable circuits.
Additional capacitance is therefore required in the form of switch-
able capacitor banks at strategic locations, even though there may UNDEREXCITED GENERATOR
be an excess of charging Mvars on the high-voltage systems at the For a number of years, it has been the practice to operate gen-
same time. Also, voltage control is usually held within relatively erators in the underexcited region during light load periods. This
narrow limits in metropolitan areas and this aggravates the overall
problem. On the system discussed here, a very large change has
is the single most important method of absorbing excess system
come about in the last two years with installation of approximately
capacitive Mvars. To insure that this can be done without risk
65 miles of 345-kV cable. These situations and ways of handling of generator end-turn area heating or instability, generator ca-
them are discussed. pability curves, shown in Fig. 2, are provided to operators for all
station machines that may be operated during off-peak periods.
By their use, it is possible for the generators to be operated so as
SYSTEM CONDITIONS to absorb a maximum number of Mvars while the operators feel
THE AREA served by the Consolidated Edison system is secure in the knowledge that the machines and the system are
closely knit, having a high electric load density with an being operated in a safe and prudent manner. Operating limits in
approximately 6250-MW 1-hour peak in 600 square miles in New the underexcited region include recognition of the effects of a sys-
City and adjoining Westchester County, as shown in Fig. 1, with tem disturbance which will cause sudden load additions to the
concentrations in several locations of Manhattan as high as 500 unit.
MW per square mile. The system transmission backbone consists Unfortunately, the minimum loads and thus the greatest sur-
of 345-kV installations of high-capacity cables in New York plus
City ends of Mvarstheusually occurs during early morning hours on week-
and 345-kV overhead lines in Westchester County. There is also during spring and fall. This is the time when units are
a paralleling system at 138 kV. Within New York City limits
most likely to be out of service for scheduled overhaul or week-
both systems are entirely underground. In addition, in Man- end maintenance. Thus, a number of the largest machines with
hattan and the high load density area of the other four boroughs, the greatest capability of absorbing reactive power are often not
the entire distribution at 27 and 13.8 kV is underground. The available. This problem is further aggravated by the pressures
preponderance of cable on the system produces a large reactive for operating economy which causes some machines, which could
load of charging Mvars (about 2700 Mvars) on cable above 33 absorb sizable capacitive Mvars, to be removed from service. It
kV. Although these cable-charging Mvars are useful during can be seen from 2Table I that with the two largest machines
system peak load conditions, they constitute both an engineering (Ravenswood nos. and 3) out of service, the ability to absorb
and an operating problem during light load periods. Mvars is reduced greatly. Should other machines be out of ser-
The minimum off-peak daily load during the off-peak season on vice on scheduled overhaul at the same time, it would be necessary
the system is about 20 percent of the weekday peak load. On an to switch selected cable circuits out of service, if system voltage
average day, the ratio of minimum to peak load is about 30 per-
is to be adequately controlled.
cent. This wide variation in system daily load creates a problem TABLE I
in control of system voltage during both heavy and light load GENERATOR ABSORPTION CAPABILITIES UNDER LIGHT LOAD
periods. During heavy load periods, about 500 Mvars of switch- CONDITIONS*
able shunt capacitors are placed in service both for reasons of volt-
age control on 4-kV feeders and to reduce the ampere load on
high-voltage cable and substation transformers. During the Underexcited
Station Generators Mvars
lighter load periods, the capacitive Mvars will far exceed the
inductive Mvars even though all switched capacitors are discon- Raven-swood 1 and 2 344
nected. It is during these periods that control of system voltage Ravenswood 3 335
Astoria 4 and 5 348
Astoria 3 167
Astoria 1 and 2 184
Paper 31 TP 66-329, recommended and approved by the Power Indian Point 1 70
System Engineering Committee of the IEEE Power Group for East River 7 24
presentation at the IEEE Summer Power Meeting, New Orleans, Arthur Kill 2 167
La., July 10-15, 1966. Manuscript submitted April 11, 1966; made
available for printing April 22, 1966. Total 1639
The authors are with the Consolidated Edison Company, New
York, N. Y. * Approximately 40 percent of machine rating.
50 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER APPARATUS AND SYSTEMS JANUARY 1968

Fig. 1. Geographical arrangement of major 60-Hz transmission system.

BALET AND WEBB: REACTIVE POWER AND ITS CONTROL 51

JV H2 PRESSURES
SHUNT REACTORS
Shunt reactors are a direct means of absorbing excessive
charging Mvars. By placing these at or near the terminals
of high-voltage cable, it is possible not only to absorb the
unneeded Mvars but also maintain a desirable voltage gradient
300
on the 345- and 138-kV transmission systems. At the present
time, Consolidated Edison has placed shunt reactors at two types
of installations. About 560 Mvars have been attached to the ter-
tiary windings of 345-, 138-kV autotransformers and another 120
30PIG 0 3)o 6 Mvars have been connected to 27-kV substation buses. In all
cases, these reactors have been switchable so that they could be
removed from service during heavy load periods as necessary.
The 560 Mvars connected to the tertiary windings of auto-
200
transformers are eight 13.8-kV, 70-Mvar outdoor open-type
shunt reactors. The current rating, and therefore the Mvar rating
of the reactors, is controlled by the 3000-ampere rating of the 13.8-
kV breaker used to switch the reactor. In some cases, the phase
relationship of the tertiary winding of the autotransformer is such
that it can also be used as a source of start-up power for generat-
RATED
FULL ing units in the vicinity. Due to peculiarities of the secondary
LOAD
network system, there are no plans for using the tertiary wind-
Fig. 2. Turbine-generator capability curves used for machine opera- ings to supply customer load.
tion. A-wit;h no regulator in service. B-With one or both high- In two substations 27-kV shunt reactors have been connected
pressure and low-pressure regulators in service. Not operated in to the substation bus. In these cases the reactors have been
areas below curve A or B as applicable. limited in size to 30 Mvars each so that there will be a voltage
variation of less than two percent on the 27-kV bus, and thus on
the customer's service, when the reactors are switched. In both
instances, where shunt reactors have been connected to 27-kV
substation buses, it has been arranged to switch them with the
same breaker normally used to switch the shunt capacitors. This
points up one of the paradoxes of system design, the use of shunt
capacitors during the high load period to increase substation
megawatt capability and shunt reactors at night on the same
bus for system voltage control.

REACTIVE LOAD AND LoSSES

The reactive load and associated inductive losses are a large
sink for Mvars on the system. However, the load during the
early morning hours has not been growing particularly rapidly
and thus has not kept pace with the peak load growth and the
continually increasing charging Mvars. The transmission induc-
tive reactive losses and station auxiliary inductive load appear
to be relatively independent of system load and are about 600
Mvar on the Consolidated Edison system during early morning
hours. Substation and distribution transformer inductive losses
vary with systems load, of course. No breakdown is available
of total inductive losses into the various components, line,
transformer, and station auxiliary losses. Efforts to make a
generalized calculation of inductive reactive losses have largely
been inaccurate and it has been found more practical to mea-
sure the losses at various load levels and treat them empirically.

INCREASE OF REACTIVE LOSSES BY MEANS OF

CONTROLLING DEVICES
As previously mentioned, the transmission system reactive
losses do not seem to vary markedly with the load level. How-
I
GREENWOOO
ever, as can be seen in Fig. 3, on the Consolidated Edison system
FOR HILLS
2

S _ 2 there are a number of phase angle regulators which control the

27 RTHRRT
H
HILL
FUTURE
megawatt flow on the various cable circuits. Also, essentially every
FRESH LLS _ K
I
Q KV CABLES

OR OH LINES
transformer in the transmission system is equipped with voltage
IS I 345 KV CABLES load tap changers. By manipulation of these controlling devices
P.
N. S.
.NJ _ OR OH LINES
it would be possible to force more current to flow than other-
138 KV CABLES
OR OH LINES wise and thus increase the inductive Mvar losses. If all the four
GOETHALST 345
KV ANGLE
REGU LATORS
transformers normally operating in parallel on a major substa-
AUTO
tion bus had their taps biased so that two operate at +5
TON -
TO2 50
"-
RHV
-i
TRANSFORMERS
percent and the other two at -5 percent of their schedule,
bus voltage would not change but each transformer would be
Fig. 3. Single-line diagram of 60-Hz high-voltage interconnections. loaded to 50 percent of rating. Such a change at all presently
52 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER APPARATUS AND SYSTEMS
available substations, coupled with the effects that may
be had from the phase angle regulators, could realize about
200 Mvar additional losses. The operating problems associated
with this solution are presently being studied. However, it can
be seen that compensation obtained in this way is not a total
solution to the problem.
DEENERGIZATION OF CABLE
To avoid the need for excessive installation of shunt reactors
to compensate for all the cable-charging current, another means
of controlling excess reactive power is to deenergize selected
cables during light load periods. Since, for the most part, each
link of the Consolidated Edison high-voltage interconnections is
made up of two or more cables in parallel, system reliability would
not be seriously affected by certain cable outages. During the
early morning hours, most cable circuits are loaded to a small
fraction of their rating, so it would not be difficult for the opera-
tors to maintain feeder loadings within cable ratings while parallel
feeders were out of service. However, there are areas of concern
which tend to make cable switching less attractive.
1) Switching Surges: With the installation of preinsertion re-
sistors in the air-blast breakers, switching surges are minimized.
The maximum surges, even under such severe conditions as re-
closing a 345-kV cable on a trapped charge, are no more than 2.3
times normal voltage. Although this is well within lightning
arrester ratings there is some feeling that it would not be wise to
subject equipment to switching surge voltage on a frequently
repeated basis.
2) Circuit Breaker Limitations: High-voltage switchgear is not
presently designed for daily operation. The ASA standards pro-
vide that, following 125-load switching operations, a 345-kV air-
blast breaker should be inspected and maintenance work done.
It further specifies that the mechanical life test of such a breaker
is 750 operations. As can be seen, the daily switching of cables
would greatly increase the maintenance on circuit breakers and
could possibly lead to their premature replacement, or at least
excessive replacement of parts. Neither is tolerable from an op-
erating standpoint.
The severity of these two problems is being investigated fur-
ther, however, so that a decision can be made on the feasibility
of reactive control by switching cable on a regular daily basis.
POSSIBLE COURSES OF ACTION
As the high-voltage cable mileage on the system increases, the
requirements for underexcited reactive generation during light
load periods will increase far more rapidly than the operating
capability of new generators. This problem will be further aggra-
vated if generation is installed outside New York City and rela-
tively long cable circuits are necessary to transport the output to
the load center. It is therefore apparent that it will be necessary
to adopt one or a combination of the steps outlined in the pre-
ceding. These will probably be used in some suitable combination
but the most satisfactory way to neutralize large blocks of capaci-
tive Mvars is to use shunt reactors.
JANUARY 1968
Installation of Shunt Reactors
While the installation of more shunt reactors is the most direct
and simple approach to the problem of reactive control, it is also
expensive. Consolidated Edison foresees the day when almost all
high-voltage cable will have to be totally compensated. This
would increase the effective cost of the cable by about ten percent
since the cost of the shunt reactors would be directly associated
with cable installation. A decision has recently been reached to
fully compensate two new 345-kV cable circuits from Brooklyn
to Staten Island. Each of these is 18.3 miles long and requires
approximately 300 Mvars for compensation at 345 kV, 60 Hz.
These 600 inductive Mvars will be provided by three 150-Mvar,
345-kV shunt reactors and two more 70 Mvar, 13.8-kV shunt re-
actors connected to an autotransformer tertiary winding.
System Start-Up-Effects of Cables
The capacitive reactance of uncompensated cables caused con-
siderable difficulty in reenergizing the high-voltage tie feeder
system the night of November 9, 1965. Overvoltages appeared in
several areas and required careful handling of the 138- and 345-kV
cable reenergization until considerable generation and system
load had been restarted. Fully compensated cables would have
been helpful at that time.
CONCLUSIONS
1) Large cable installations and unswitched capacitors create
voltage control and reactive control problems in electric power
systems, particularly during light load periods.
2) Turbine-generators with automatic voltage regulators can
be operated successfully in the underexcited region to aid this
problem of excessive system capacitive reactive loading.
3) Generators alone, with their underexcited limitations, may
not have sufficient capability to control voltages in some systems
where substantial amounts of high-voltage cable are used.
4) Shunt reactors are an effective solution but economics may
suggest other methods. However, shunt reactors are helpful in
controlling system voltage during system start-up.
5) More experience with daily switching of 138- and 345-kV
circuit breakers is necessary before definite conclusions can be
drawn as to the advisability of operating them so frequently.
6) This problem will become generally more important in
future years due to increasing use of EHV overhead lines and
high-voltage cable in densely populated areas.
REFERENCES
[l] R. L. Webb, "The electric power system of Consolidated Edison
Company of New York, Inc.," Trans. New York Acad. Sci., Ser. II,
vol. 26, suppl. to no. 8.
[2] W. J. Roberts and R. L. Webb, "Operatioin of turbine-generators
during off-peak high power-factor periods-practices of one utility
in a metropolitan area," Trans. AIEE, vol. 74, pp. 461-467, June
1955.
13] C. Concordia, S. B. Crary, and J. M. Lyons, "Stability charac-
teristics of turbine generators," Trans. AIEE, vol. 57, pp. 732-744,
1938.
[4] G. C. Crossman, H. F. Lindemuth, and R. L. Webb, "Loss-
of-field protection for generators," Trans. AIEE, vol. 61, pp. 261-266,
May 1942.