1

A Comparative Study of Voltage Stability for

Long Distance HVAC and HVDC
Interconnections
Mai H. Nguyen, Student Member, IEEE, Tapan K. Saha, Senior Member, IEEE
and Mehdi Eghbal, Member, IEEE

systems are Maximum Available Power (MAP), Critical

Abstract-- This paper presents a comparative study of voltage Effective Short Circuit Ratio (CESCR) and Voltage Stability
stability indices for three different long transmission Factor (VSF). The maximum power method, which
technologies. High Voltage AC (HVAC), hybrid High Voltage DC determines MAP and the voltage sensitivity method to
(HVDC) and bipolar HVDC lines are compared in terms of
determine VSF are best described in [3]. These two methods
voltage stability and point of collapse. Each scenario is analyzed
with different lengths of transmission lines and in different coincide, i.e. the MAP point is reached when VSF nears
contingency conditions. The impacts of HVDC control modes and infinite, if the converters are operated in constant extinction
parameters on interconnection voltage stability are also angle and constant power control mode. The basic P-V
examined. Simulations are carried out on a simplified Australian stability equations are also derived taking into account load
power system with CIGRE HVDC models using the Power characteristics and system parameters. These methods are
Factory software package.
applied in [4] to determine the most unfavorable load
Index Terms— HVAC, HVDC, long transmission, Point of
characteristics with respect to degrading power/voltage
Collapse (PoC), voltage stability. stability margins. This is done by analyzing the impact of load
characteristic on maximum power instability (dP/dI) and MAP
I. INTRODUCTION of the HVDC system. The Short Circuit Ratio (SCR) or
CESCR are also considered as stability factors for an HVDC
A ustralian major hot rock geothermal energy resources are
mainly located in remote areas. To exploit the electrical
power generated from such clean resources, long transmission
system, but only appropriate to evaluate the impacts of AC
system on the stability margin of HVDC [11].
Gonzalez et. al. in [10], introduce a new index
lines are required to deliver the power to the major load
(dQt/eig_min) for voltage stability analysis of AC/DC
centers or the nearest connection point of the existing
systems. This index is used to classify the system into soft and
transmission network. For long transmission of bulk power
non-soft modal systems. The latter is defined as the system
several technical and economical issues have to be considered
with constant dQt/eig_min for all the SCRs and vice versa for
before an optimal decision can be made. Voltage stability in
the former. This index also serves as a basis to decide the type
general is one of the main technical issues to be considered.
of reactive power compensation and HVDC control strategy.
Voltage stability in HVAC and HVDC systems has been
While the above mentioned indices can be used to compare
traditionally studied for simple power system models.
voltage stability margins between HVDC systems, they are not
However, stability indices in the literature have been analyzed
applicable for HVAC and HVDC comparison.
only for each individual technology. The conventional
Canizares et. al. in [7] extend the conventional PoC method
methods to determine the stability margin for a HVAC system
developed for AC systems to determination of saddle-node
are based on QV and PV curves. From those curves one can
bifurcation in systems including HVDC links. In [8], a
calculate steady state voltage stability indices, such as reactive
comparison of the performance of the PoC and continuation
power margin, point of collapse, as well as voltage stability
methods for large AC/DC systems is presented. The proposed
factor. [1, 2]
continuation method is applied in UWPflow and PSAT
Many methods used to obtain the stability margin for a
packages [12, 13].
HVDC system are well presented in the literature [2-10]. The
A nonlinear programming approach for estimating the
most common voltage stability indices used for HVDC
voltage stability in AC/DC systems based on the above
mentioned algorithms is presented in [9] where PoCs are
This work was supported by Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of found by solving an optimization problem for several test
Excellence (QGECE), the University of Queensland, Australia.
M. H. Nguyen (huongmai@itee.uq.edu.au) and T. K. Saha
systems. However, more in-depth analytical explanation is
(saha@itee.uq.edu.au) are with the School of Information Technology and required and control issues of HVDC systems need to be
Electrical Engineering and Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of considered. Inappropriate control schemes of firing, extinction
Excellence, the University of Queensland, QLD-4072, Australia.
M. Eghbal (m.eghbal@uq.edu.au) is with the Queensland Geothermal
and overlap angles results in commutation failure or
Energy Centre of Excellence, the University of Queensland, QLD-4072, singularity in the Jacobian matrix. Therefore, PoC based on
Australia.

978-1-4244-6551-4/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE


this method is not reliable to be used in the comparison of
voltage stability of HVDC and HVAC systems.
The dVac/dq factor at a particular bus is a commonly used
voltage stability index in both AC and DC systems [2, 5, 6].
However, it has never been used for comparison purposes
between HVAC and HVDC systems.
The main objective in this paper is to compare the
performances of HVAC and HVDC interconnections in terms
of voltage stability margin. The economical aspects of the
proposed technologies are not considered in this paper. To do
so, first three scenarios for an interconnection in the
Australian Southern-Eastern (SE) simplified network are
assumed. Then Point of Collapse (PoC) is calculated from the
PV curve obtained by running power flows repeatedly until
the load flow fails to converge. The behavior of each scenario
under normal base case and contingency states are analyzed.
The impacts of HVDC control modes and parameters on the
voltage stability of the interconnection are also examined.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
reviews a background of conventional HVDC links and the
HVDC control models in the PowerFactory software package.
Section III discusses and illustrates the simulation results on a
14-generator simplified Australian Southern and Eastern
power system. The last section explains concluding remarks
and future perspectives.
II. BACKGROUND:
Currently there are two types of HVDC technologies
commonly used all over the world: Voltage Source Converter
(VSC) and Current Source Converter (CSC) HVDC. VSC-
HVDC, also known as HVDC Light or HVDC Plus, is the
state of art technology for HVDC transmission lines. VSC
HVDC is very suitable for transmitting power underground,
underwater and over quite long distances. One VSC HVDC
unit is capable of transmitting from a few tens to several
hundreds of MW [11]. Therefore, it does not come into the
picture due to the very high power transfer normally needing
to be considered. The HVDC used for analysis in this paper is
CSC HVDC only.
The single line diagram of a HVDC system is depicted in
Fig. 1. The steady state behavior of an AC-DC power system
has been described in detail by Arrilaga et.al [14]. The state
variables for a HVDC system are: [x] = [Vd, Id, a, cosα, φ]T
where Vd and Id are the direct voltage and current, α and φ are
the firing angle and the terminal voltage angle respectively.
For the inverter side, α will be replaced by γ, which is called
the extinction angle. The indices r and i represent the
parameters at the rectifier and the inverter sides, respectively.
Fig. 1 Single diagram of a conventional HVDC link [14]
2
In the PowerFactory software package [15], the converters
are modeled as a load with constant active and reactive power
P and Q during steady state operation. Basic equations in [2,
14] are used to calculate the control variables and parameters
of the converter buses, as in (1)-(11).
No load direct voltage (Vdor) is defined as:
sin
√
(1)
√
Where s0 is the number of commutation groups, q is the
number of branches in a commutation group. For a 6-pulse
converter there are two commutation groups (s0=2) and q is
equal to 3, hence Vdor is:
√
(2)
The “on load” DC voltage can be obtained from (3).
(3)
Where, μ is the overlap angle.
The relationship between the firing angle, extinction angle
and overlap angle can be expressed by (4).
α+γ+μ = 1800 (4)
In the literature the AC current is often approximately
calculated from the ideal rectifier current with the overlap
angle neglected (μ = 0°) [2]. In the PowerFactory software
package the amplitude of the fundamental frequency currents
Isr is calculated using the Fourier analysis of the phase current
waveform, so the effect of the commutation is taken into
account. The AC-DC current defined as Isr can be calculated
as follows.
√
(5)
Where k is equal to:
(6)
This factor is close to unity for small values of μ, but if it
becomes larger, the error increases up to 4%
The DC power at the rectifier terminal can be calculated as:
Pdr = VdrId (7)
The commutation resistance in the converter is neglected;
therefore DC and AC power at the converter terminal are
equal.
The power consumed in the rectifier bus is:
Stermr = √3Vtermr.Isr = Pdr/cosφr (8)
 3

The power factor cos(φr) can then be calculated assuming a case, bus 101 was the slack bus for area 1 and bus 201 was the
symmetrical firing angle: slack bus for area 2.
√
. . .
√ √ .√
(9)
The reactive power consumed at the rectifier bus is defined
as Qdr and can be obtained by (10).

(10)

The equations (1-10) can be applied to calculate the DC

current, voltage and power at the inverter side, with cosα and
index r replaced by cosγ and index i, respectively.
The relationship between dc voltages at the rectifier and the
inverter buses of HVDC link is as below.

(11)

Where, Rd is the dc line resistance and Vdi is the dc voltage

at the inverter bus.
In the power flow module of the Power Factory software
the converter buses of HVDC are considered as constant PQ
loads. Then, the AC system steady state is solved by
conventional Newton Raphson method. When two areas are
separated by a HVDC link, the system requires two swing
buses to run the power flow program. The PV curve is
obtained by running load flow continually with small
increases in loadability at all selected load buses.

III. CASE STUDY:

A. Steady state
The test system used in this paper is the simplified
Southern and Eastern Australian power system shown in Fig.
2, which comprises of 5 areas and 14 generators. Data for this
system is available in [16]. In the original system, total
generation and load in medium heavy condition are 21590MW
and 21000 MW respectively and is considered as the base case
in this study. In this system, areas 1 and 2 are connected to
each other by four parallel 330KV HVAC lines delivering a
total of 1120MW power from area 1 to area 2. To compare the
performance of HVAC and HVDC interconnections three
scenarios were considered. The first scenario was four HVAC
lines as presented in the original system. In the second
scenario, two of the HVAC lines were replaced with two Fig. 2 Simplified SE Australian power system diagram [16]
parallel bipolar HVDC lines and in the third scenario, all four
HVAC lines were replaced with four bipolar HVDC lines. The Table 1 shows the parameters of the modified CIGRE
rated voltage of the HVDC lines were assumed to be 500KV HVDC benchmark model. HVDC line was operated in power
and the data was taken from CIGRE benchmark model [14]. control mode at the rectifier bus and constant gamma control
The parameters of the interconnection line (102-217) were as mode at the inverter bus. The extinction angle of the inverter
follows. R=9.1476Ω, X=72.6363Ω and B=750.23μS. This line was kept at 18o and the power delivery was 1120MW through
was assumed to be a 300km line of VIRGO type, with the HVDC lines.
following line parameters: ro = 0.0273Ω/km; xo = 0.248Ω/km The original CIGRE Benchmark model has two high
and bo= 4.414 μS/km. frequency and two low frequency filters at two ends of the
In the HVAC and the hybrid HVDC scenarios, bus 101 was HVDC line. Results of the power flow for the bipolar HVDC
the slack bus for the whole system and for the bipolar HVDC scenario indicated that the reactive power sources in the
original system were not enough to supply the extra reactive
 4

HVAC hybrid HVDC bipolar HVDC

1.08

1.06
Voltage, pu

1.04

1.02

0.98
102
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
504
505
506
507
508
509
Bus number

Fig. 3 Steady state voltage profile for each scenario

power consumption needed in the convertor buses. To solve
the problem of the reactive power limit exceeding of the
SVC’s at buses 509 and 313, two additional capacitor banks,
each 125 MVAr were connected at the converter buses and
one 30 MVAr capacitor bank was connected at bus 509. With
these modifications, the system properly converged and the
total reactive power required was 3874.31 MVAr.
TABLE 1
MODIFIED CIGRE HVDC BENCHMARK MODEL PARAMETERS
Parameter Rectifier
AC-system line-to-line voltage 330 kV
Equivalent commutation reactance 27 Ω
DC current 2 kA
DC voltage 500 kV
DC power 1120 MW
The hybrid HVDC scenario included two HVDC and two
HVAC lines in parallel where each HVDC line carried
280MW of the power and the rest was accounted for by the
HVAC lines. The extinction angle was still maintained at 18o
but the filter capacity was reduced to half due to the decline in
power transfer through the HVDC line. To solve the
convergence problem in this case, a 62.5 MVAr capacitor
bank was connected to the rectifier bus and no more reactive
power limit problem was observed.
Table 2 presents the total active and reactive power for the
proposed scenarios.
Fig.3 depicts the steady state voltage profiles of the buses
for each scenario. It can be seen that the worst voltage profile
is recorded for bipolar HVDC scenario. The extinction angle
control kept the AC and DC voltages at bus 217 (inverter bus)
to 1.04 pu and 1 pu, respectively. Although the AC voltage at
bus 217 (inverter bus) in all cases changed slightly, the AC
voltage at bus 102 (rectifier bus) in the bipolar HVDC case
was lower than that in the other cases. The graph also shows
that the HVDC only affects the voltage profile in the
neighbouring area of the converter buses and voltage profiles
Inverter in areas 4 and 5 were almost unchanged.
330 kV
27 Ω B. PV curve
2 kA
PV curves at both the rectifier and the inverter buses were
calculated for all three scenarios. To have a better comparison
500kV of results, physical conditions of the interconnection (length of
1096 MW the line, type of the converters, AC and DC conductor types
and amount of the transferred power) were kept unchanged for
the studied scenarios. PV curves were calculated based on a
uniform increase of loads in areas 1, 2 and 3, since the HVDC
has a local impact only. In these simulations, HVDC link was
operating in a constant extinction angle control mode at γ=18o.
Fig. 4 shows the PV curves at the inverter bus (bus 217) for
the three scenarios. It can be seen that the hybrid HVDC has
the worst performance in terms of PoC.
1.05
1
Volatage, pu

TABLE 2
TOTAL ACTIVE AND REACTIVE POWER FOR THE PROPOSED SCENARIOS 0.95

HVAC Hybrid HVDC Bipolar HVDC HVAC

0.9 Hybrid HVDC
P Q P Q P Q
GW GVAr GW GVAr GW GVAr Bipolar HVDC
0.85
Generator 21.59 3.391 21.612 3.377 21.607 3.541
1 1.1 1.2 1.3
SVC 0 0.339 0 0.339 0 0.331 Loadability
Load 21 2.251 21 2.251 21 2.251 Fig. 4 PV curve at bus 217 (inverter bus)

Although the voltage profile of the hybrid HVDC is
slightly better than the bipolar HVDC case, it can be observed
that PoC for the hybrid HVDC (solid line) is worse than the
bipolar HVDC case (dotted). It is shown that PoCs of the
bipolar HVDC and the hybrid HVDC are 1.343 and 1.119,
respectively. The behavior of the PV curves can be explained
as follows:
a) PoC in the hybrid HVDC scenario was the lowest
compared to the other cases. There was no capacitor at
the inverter bus and voltage collapsed when the
loading factor reached 1.119 due to the lack of reactive
power. Results of the power flow for the three
scenarios at 1.119 loading factor showed that reactive
power consumption at the converter stations of bipolar
and hybrid HVDC were 740MVAr and 655MVAr,
respectively. The reactive power losses in the
interconnection of HVAC and hybrid HVDC cases
were 372.4MVar and 204.3MVar, respectively. It can
be seen that total reactive power required in the hybrid-
HVDC is higher than the other cases.
b) In the bipolar HVDC case, there were two slack buses
in areas 2 and 3. When the loading factor increased,
both generators at buses 101 and 201 contributed to
supply the additional power. However, in the HVAC
and hybrid HVDC cases, only the generator at bus 101
(slack bus) provided the required active power and
consequently losses increased and PoC became lower
than the bipolar HVDC case.
It was also observed that the location of the slack bus
affected the PoC. As an example, in the HVAC case, if bus
201 was selected as the slack bus, PoC would be 1.439 that is
even slightly higher than the obtained PoC in the bipolar
HVDC case. This was expected because the power transferred
on the interconnection between areas was unchanged for this
case.
1.05
1.03
Volatage, pu
1.01
0.99
HVAC
0.97 Hybrid HVDC
Bipolar HVDC
0.95
1 1.1 1.2 1.3
Loadability
Fig. 5 PV curve at bus 102 (rectifier bus)
Fig. 5 shows the PV curves at the rectifier bus for the three
scenarios. It can be seen that at the beginning of the PV
curves, the voltage magnitude at bus 102 increases slightly in
the HVAC and hybrid HVDC cases and considerably in the
5
bipolar HVDC scenario. The change in the direction of the
power flow in the interconnection between areas 3 and 1 may
explain these overvoltages. During the steady state condition,
area 3 supplied power to area 1 through two interconnection
lines. When the slack bus was in area 1 and the loads in areas
1, 2 and 3 were increasing uniformly area 1 started sending
power to area 3. This resulted in a reduction of the amount of
active power flow in that interconnection and consequently
due to the reactive power reduction the voltage magnitude at
bus 102 increased. In the bipolar HVDC case, the capacitor
banks and filters supplied more reactive power than required
and consequently the voltage at bus 102 increased more
steeply than in the other cases.
To investigate the impacts of the control mode of the
converter buses on voltage stability, PV curves were obtained
for three different control schemes. One was power control at
the rectifier bus (bus 102) and gamma control at the inverter
bus (bus 217) as shown in Fig.6 with a dashed line. The
second was power control at the rectifier bus and DC voltage
control at the inverter bus depicted with a solid line in the
graph below. The last control mode was assumed as current
control at the rectifier bus and gamma control at the inverter
bus as illustrated with a dotted line in Fig.6.
1.04
1.02
1
Voltage, pu
0.98
0.96
0.94 Power + gamma
Power + voltage
0.92
Current + gamma
0.9
1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
Loadability
Fig. 6 PV curve at bus 217 (inverter bus) with different control modes
In the rectifier bus the current set point was assumed to be
2.217kA for the current control mode and the power
transferred in steady state was 1120MW. As can be seen in the
above figure, PV curves for the power and current control
modes have almost the same behavior. In the inverter bus, for
gamma control the extinction angle (γ) was 18o and for the
voltage control mode DC voltage set point was assumed 1pu.
Fig.6 shows that the DC voltage control results in higher
PoC than the gamma control. The reason for this is that the
gamma control did not maintain DC voltage constant;
therefore, the AC voltage at the inverter bus declined more
steeply than that in the gamma control as the loads increased.
The voltage control kept the DC voltage at the inverter bus
equal to 1pu by reducing the extinction angle when the loads
increased. As a result, the reactive power consumption at the
inverter bus would be smaller, compared to the case of gamma
control mode.

In Fig.6, a large drop in AC voltage can be observed at a
loading factor close to 1.272. At this point the extinction angle
at the inverter bus was 2.8o and AC voltage was 0.997 pu.
After a small increase in the loading factor at point 1.273 the
AC voltage dropped drastically to 0.961 pu after the extinction
angle became 33o. The extinction angle was increased to
maintain constant volt-second commutating margin as stated
in [2]. After that point, the extinction angle decreased again
and the system converged in rounding mode until point 1.412
of the loading factor.
DC voltage magnitude at the inverter bus for the extinction
angles equal to 18o and 20o were 1pu and 0.98pu respectively.
A decrease in DC voltage pulled the voltage of the
neighborhood area down and consequently resulted in an
increase in reactive power loss and decrease in PoC.
These results show that the dc voltage control in the
inverter bus can enhance the voltage stability margin
compared to the gamma control mode. However, it leads to a
commutation failure that does not happen in gamma control
mode. In this particular system, current control at the
converter bus of HVDC line had a slightly better impact on the
voltage stability than the power control mode.
It can also be concluded that the advantages of HVDC over
HVAC in terms of voltage stability depends on the set point of
the extinction angle. In order to enhance power system
stability and losses, operation at minimum extinction angle is
recommended.
C. Impacts of interconnection distance on system voltage
stability:
To show the impacts of the length of the interconnection on
system voltage stability, PV curves of the three cases were
calculated for different lengths. The HVDC system was
operated in power control mode at the rectifier bus and dc
voltage control mode at the inverter bus, with 1120MW power
set point and the extinction angle equal to 18o. Fig.7 illustrates
the trend of the PoC when the length of the interconnection
varies from 120km to 600km.
1.4
1.3
Point of Collapse
HVAC
1.2 Hybrid HVDC
Bipolar HVDC
1.1
1
0 200 400 600
Length, km
Fig. 7 Point of collapse related to interconnection distance
It can be seen that the bipolar HVDC is superior to the
other options regardless of the distance of the interconnection
as the PoC is almost constant. The reason for this is that when
6
the interconnection distance increases only the resistance of
the DC link increases. Due to the controls at both ends of the
HVDC line, the steady state of the system is nearly unchanged
and PoC is not affected. In HVAC and hybrid HVDC systems
the PoC is more sensitive to the distance and decreases
proportionally when the length of the interconnection
increases. As a result, the bipolar HVDC option is the best
option and the hybrid one is the worst one with regard to PoC
in the considered range of interconnection distances.
D. Impact of contingency on system voltage stability
The following sub-sections address the impacts of loss of
interconnection lines and heavy loading conditions on the
point of collapse.
1) Loss of interconnections:
The system is assumed to be N-1 contingency compliant,
therefore when one line tripped the others are sustainable to
carry the total transferred power. To compare the behavior of
each scenario under the contingency state, PoC for areas 1, 2
and 3 were calculated assuming the outage of one transmission
line between buses 102 and 217.
1.4
1.3
Point of collapse
1.2
1.1
1
HVAC Hybrid HVDC Bipolar HVDC
base case line outage
Fig. 8 Impacts of interconnection outage on PoC of areas 1, 2 and 3
Fig.8 shows that in the case of one line outage, bipolar
HVDC is very stable since the point of collapse was
unchanged while in HVAC and hybrid HVDC cases, PoC is
reduced. The reason for this lies in the fact that when a DC
line tripped, only the total resistance of HVDC
interconnections was increased and had low impact on the
load flow result in the whole system, hence no impact is
observed on PoC either. In the HVAC case when an AC line
tripped, although the resistance was increased by the same
amount as in the HVDC case, reactance was increased
considerably larger than resistance. Consequently the reactive
power consumed in the system increased, which reduced the
800
voltage at all buses and the PoC. In the hybrid-HVDC case, if
one HVDC line tripped PoC would not change and when one
HVAC line tripped the PoC declined noticeably.
 7

2) Heavy loading condition:
The system was originally in medium heavy loading
condition with total load equal to 21000MW. To investigate
the behavior of the system under heavy loading conditions, all
the loads in area 2 were increased by 1.1 times. Fig. 9 shows
the PoCs for areas 1 and 3 (sending areas) under the assumed
heavy loading condition. It can be seen that the heavily loaded
condition had the largest impact on PoC of the sending area in
the hybrid HVDC case. In this case, because the amount of
active power in the HVDC lines was fixed additional active
power had to be delivered through the HVAC lines and it
resulted in high reactive power losses. In the bipolar HVDC,
PoC was less influenced by the heavy loading condition.
1.5
1.4
Point of Collapse
It can be concluded that the bipolar HVDC is less sensitive
to the contingency condition than the other two options.
Comparing Fig.9 and Fig.10 also shows that the voltage
stability in the latter case is less affected by the heavy loading
condition.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the impacts of HVAC and HVDC
interconnections to the PoC of the system have been
compared. From the simulation results based on the simplified
Southern and Eastern Australian system the followings
conclusions can be made:
In this particular system, the bipolar HVDC is found to be
superior to the others and the hybrid HVDC is the worst
option in terms of PoC no matter how long the transmission
line was.
The constant gamma control at the inverter bus should be
operated at the minimum extinction angle in order to enhance

1.3 the power system stability and reduce losses.

The bipolar HVDC was less sensitive to the disturbance in
1.2 the system compared to the other options. The stability was
better maintained when the disturbance occurred either in
1.1 other areas or at the interconnection itself.
In conclusion, bipolar HVDC is found to be the best option
1 in terms of voltage stability. The hybrid option is the most
HVAC Hybrid HVDC Bipolar HVDC expensive one and has the worst performance on system static
voltage stability enhancement.
base case heavy loaded It should be noted that optimal placement of reactive power
Fig. 9 Impacts of heavy loading condition of receiving area (area 2) on the
compensation can greatly improve the efficiency of both
PoC of sending areas (areas 1 and 3) HVAC and HVDC systems, which has not been addressed in
this paper. Moreover, one potential advantage of the HVDC
Fig. 10 depicts the PoCs for area 2 (receiving area) when system is its capability to enhance the total system dynamic
all the loads in areas 1 and 3 (sending areas) were increased by stability. A thorough study of optimal reactive power
1.2 times. It can be seen that the heavy loading condition had compensation and a comprehensive study of system voltage
nearly no impact on the PoC of the receiving end area in the stability are thus needed and will be the subject of our future
hybrid and bipolar HVDC cases. The PoC in the HVAC case research.
reduced slightly.

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 8

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some Indexes to Assess Voltage Stability ofAC/DC Transmission Systems,"
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Available at: http://psdyn.ece.wisc.edu/IEEE_benchmarks/

VI. BIOGRAPHIES
Mai H. Nguyen received B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Hanoi
University of Technology, Vietnam in 2006, M.E. in the field of Electricity
Market from the University of Queensland, Australia, in 2008. She is
currently studying her PhD in the area of power stability analysis for long
transmission line at the School of Information Technology and Electrical
Engineering, the University of Queensland, Australia. She is funded by a
research program from the Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of
Excellence. Her research interest lies in power system stability and integration
of the renewable resources.

Tapan Kumar Saha (M’93, SM’97) was born in Bangladesh in 1959 and
immigrated to Australia in 1989. He received his B. Sc Engineering (electrical
and electronic) in 1982 from the Bangladesh University of Engineering &
Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, M.Tech (electrical engineering) in1985 from
the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India and PhD in 1994 from
the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Tapan is currently
Professor of Electrical Engineering in the School of Information Technology
and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, Australia. Previously
he has had visiting appointments for a semester at both the Royal Institute of
Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden and at the University of Newcastle
(Australia). He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. His
research interests include condition monitoring of electrical plants, power
systems and power quality.

Mehdi Eghbal was born in Iran in 1976. He received B.S. in electrical

engineering from Ferdowsi University of Mashad, Iran in 1998, M.S. degree
in power system engineering in 2001 from Tarbiat Modares University,
Tehran, Iran and PhD degree in 2009 from Hiroshima University in the field
of Artificial Complex System Engineering. Currently he is with the
Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence (QGECE), the
University of Queensland, Australia. His research interest lies in application
of heuristic techniques in power system planning and operation and renewable
energies.