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VOLTAGE CONTROL AND REACTIVE POWER SUPPORT SERVICE

System operators use reactive power resources to maintain the voltage at all the buses around the nominal
value. Keeping transmission level voltages at nominal value or within a tight range ensures proper voltages at
the distribution levels. Another important factor is that the transmission network security is closely associated
with the voltage profile. Since the voltage on a bus is strongly coupled with the supply of reactive power, the
voltage control service is also called reactive power support service.It is prudent to control the bus voltages
by providing for reactive power locally, rather than making it to flow through the grid. There are three major
reasons for this. First, the power system equipment is designed to operate within a range of voltages, usually
within 5% of the nominal voltage. At low voltages, the performance of most of the electrical equipments is
poor. For example, induction motors can overheat and get damaged. High voltages not only damage the
equipment but lalso shorten their life.
Second, the power transmission capability available from a transmission line design is limited by
technological as well as economical constraints. The reactive power consumes transmission and generation
capacity. To maximize the amount of real power that can be transferred across a congested transmission
interface, reactive power flows must be minimized. Similarly, reactive power production can limit a
generators real power capability.Third, moving reactive power on the transmission system incurs real power
losses. Thus, additional energy must be supplied to replace these losses.

Different Sources of Reactive Power

Reactive power support can be provided by active sources like generators and synchronous condensers, as
well as by locally installed passive elements like capacitors or inductors. Power electronics based family of
devices called Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) can also act as reactive power support devices.
Various sources of reactive power support have different characteristics in terms of dynamics and speed of
response, ability of voltage changes, capital costs, operating costs and opportunity costs. Their technical as
well as economical considerations are discussed next.

Generators

The synchronous generators are very fast reactive support devices. The ability of a generator to provide
reactive support depends on its real-power production. Figure 6.6 shows the limits on real and reactive
production for a typical generator. This is also called as a capability curve of a generator. Like most electric
equipment, generators are limited by their current-carrying capability. Near rated voltage, this capability
becomes an MVA limit for the armature of the generator rather than a MW limitation, shown as the armature
heating limit in the figure. Production of reactive power involves increasing the magnetic field to raise the
generators terminal voltage. Increasing the magnetic field requires increasing the current in the rotating field
winding. This too is current limited, resulting in the field-heating limit shown in the figure. Absorption of
reactive power is limited by the magnetic-flux pattern in the stator, which results in excessive heating of the
stator-end iron, the core-end heating limit. The synchronizing torque is also reduced when absorbing large
amounts of reactive power, which can also limit generator capability to reduce the chance of losing
synchronism with the system.
Usually, a synchronous generator is mandated to absorb or produce reactive power in a band bounded by
limits R1and R2, shown by dotted lines in Figure 6.6. However, outside this band, it is entitled for opportunity
costs if real power output is required to be reduced in order to produce more reactive power. For example, as
shown in the figure, if a generator is asked to supply reactive power equal to B2, rather than B1, the
operating point of generator changes from current point X to new point Y, forcing reduction in real power
output from D1 to D2. More on calculation of loss of opportunity cost is provided in further sections.

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Figure 6.6: Generator Capability Curve

Under the vertically integrated structure, only the capital and operating costs that could be associated with
the extra equipment (e.g., parts of the voltage regulator, exciter, stator, and rotor plus the operating costs
associated with field losses) required for voltage control were charged to the voltage control function.
However, in a deregulated environment, the opportunity costs associated with reduced real power sales when
excessive reactive power is required becomes an important component of the total cost of providing voltage
control from generators. In [23], it is mentioned that the costs and prices for voltage support will be highly
nonlinear with system load. At very high levels of system load, the opportunity cost of voltage support will far
exceed the embedded cost.

Synchronous Condensers

Synchronous machines that are designed exclusively to provide reactive support are called synchronous
condensers. Synchronous condensers have all of the response speed and controllability advantages of
generators without the need to construct the rest of the power plant. As compared to the static alternatives
of reactive power support, due to presence of moving parts and system auxiliaries, they require more
maintenance. They also consume real power equal to about 3% of the machines reactive-power rating.

Capacitors and Inductors

Capacitors and inductors are passive devices that generate or absorb reactive power. They accomplish this
without significant real-power losses or operating costs. The output of capacitors and inductors is
proportional to the square of the voltage. Capacitor banks are composed of individual capacitors. The
individual capacitors are connected in series and parallel to obtain the desired capacitor-bank voltage and
capacity rating. The capacitor banks are often configured with several steps to provide a limited amount of
variable control. Inductors are designed to absorb a specific amount of reactive power at a specific voltage.
They can be switched on or off but offer no variable control.

Static VAR Compensators (SVCs)

An SVC combines conventional capacitors and inductors with fast switching capability so as to provide a
continuous range of control. The range can be designed to span from absorbing to generating reactive power.
Consequently, the controls can be designed to provide very fast and effective reactive support and voltage
control. Because SVCs use capacitors, they suffer from the degradation in reactive capability as voltage
drops.

Static Synchronous Compensators (STATCOMs)

The STATCOM is a solid-state shunt device that generates or absorbs reactive power and is one member of a
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family of (FACTS) devices. The STATCOM shows similar performance as that of SVC, when compared on the
basis of response speed, control capabilities, and the use of power electronics. However, the basic difference
is that the STATCOM uses power electronics to synthesize the reactive power output, without employing
capacitors and inductors. The STATCOM ensures very fast and efficient voltage control by virtue of its solid
state nature. STATCOM capacity does not suffer as seriously as SVCs and capacitors do from degraded
voltage. STATCOMs are current limited - so their MVAR capability responds linearly to voltage as opposed to
the voltage-squared relationship of SVCs and capacitors. This attribute greatly increases the usefulness of
STATCOMs in preventing voltage collapse.

Comparison between Various Sources of Reactive Power

The comparison can be based on three parameters: voltage support ability, costs and means of procurement.

Voltage support ability

A limiting characteristic of capacitors and capacitor-based SVCs is that output drops dramatically when
voltage is low and support is needed most. STATCOMs provide more support under low-voltage conditions
than capacitors or SVCs because their capability drops linearly with voltage. The output of rotating machinery
(i.e., generators and synchronous condensers) generally rises with dropping voltage. Generators and
synchronous condensers generally have additional emergency capacity that can be used for a limited time.
Thus, Voltage-control characteristics favor the use of generators and synchronous condensers.

Costs

Costs, on the other hand, favor capacitors. Generators have extremely high capital costs because they are
designed to produce real power, rather than reactive power. Even the incremental cost of reactive support
from generators is high, although it is difficult to unambiguously separate reactive power costs from real
power costs. Operating costs for generators are high as well because they can involve real-power losses.
Finally, because generators have other uses, they experience opportunity costs when called on
simultaneously to provide high levels of reactive and real power. Synchronous condensers have the same
characteristics as generators; but, because they are built solely to provide reactive support, their capital
costs are not as high and they incur no opportunity costs. SVCs and STATCOMs are high cost devices as well,
although their operating costs are lower than those for synchronous condensers and generators.

Means of procurement

System operators can acquire reactive sources either through mandates or purchases. It might be possible to
create competitive markets for obtaining these services, provided the reactive supplies are not geographically
restricted. It is a general belief that the location limitations on reactive resources are sufficiently demanding
that competitive markets can not develop for this service. However, some possible reactive power market
designs are proposed in [23].Some system operators pay generators their embedded costs for reactive
resources. However, determining the embedded costs of generator to provide reactive power support leads to
ambiguity. This is so because; the same equipment is used to provide both real and reactive power.
Questions like what percentages, for example, of the exciter, generator stator, generator rotor, turbine
assembly, and step-up transformer should be assigned to each function are not easy to answer. Table 6.1
shows the comparison of various types of reactive power sources.

Reactive Ability to Costs

Speed of
Power response
support
Source voltage Operating Opportunity
Synchronous
Fast Excellent High Yes
Generator

Synchronous
Fast Excellent High No
Condenser

Slow, Poor, Drops

capacitor None No
Stepped with V2

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SVC Fast Poor, Drops Moderate No

with V2

Fair, Drops
STATCOM Fast Moderate No
with V

Table 6.1: Comparison of various sources of reactive power support

Issues in Reactive Power Management

The research pertaining to reactive power management can be classified into two streams: market design for
reactive power and reactive power placement analysis. The possibility of establishing a market mechanism
for reactive power is an involved issue because of the basic difference in needs and characteristics of reactive
power when compared with real power. It has been mentioned earlier that reactive power support should
preferably a local phenomenon. Thus, it is now easy to appreciate that the worth of 1 MVAR of reactive power
is different at different locations in the system. Some of these concerns about reactive power make market
modeling for it different from that of real power. These aspects are discussed at length with some alternatives
of reactive power market designs in [5, 13, 16]. A great deal of research has been done on optimal allocation
and sizing of reactive power sources to improve the system voltage profile and reduce losses [6-12].
Reference [21] proposed an integrated framework for optimal reactive power planning and its spot pricing, in
which the selection of VAR source sites is based only on the real power generation operation benefit-to-cost
ratio for a capacitor on a load bus. The approach neglects the effect of voltage improvement and system loss
reduction in the selection of VAR source sites. Three parallel methods can be used to determine the potential
sites for new VAR sources, namely: the cost-benefit analysis (CBA), the sensitivity method (SM) and the
voltage security margin method (VSMM) [21]. All three methods (CBA, SM and VSMM) reflect the
improvement of the system operation state after the VAR support service is provided. The reader is referred
to appropriate references for details of the above aspects.

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