Smooth Evacuation of Power in Grid Connected Small Hydro Power Stations by Application of SVCs

This paper explores some of the practical limitations encountered by small hydro power (SHP) units while evaluating various possibilities so as to maintain continuous generation by these units while ensuring smooth evacuation of every unit of real power generated by such units to the neighboring grid in a grid connected power system scenario. The proposed simulation has been tested under some worst system conditions and case studies conducted on the IEEE 30-bus test system by way of connecting the SHP units to the most critical system bus of the test system with static VAR compensator (SVC) control at the local bus. The test results have been validated with the support of power flow tools on a Matlab based Matpower platform. It is observed that the results obtained through application of SVCs are far more promising than those of the results obtained from OLTC transformer control mechanism only.

[1]  P. Kessel,et al.  Estimating the Voltage Stability of a Power System , 1986, IEEE Power Engineering Review.

[2]  Oliver Paish,et al.  Small hydro power: technology and current status , 2002 .

[3]  Laszlo Gyugyi,et al.  Understanding FACTS: Concepts and Technology of Flexible AC Transmission Systems , 1999 .

[4]  Takashi Hiyama,et al.  A real time PMU data and neural network approach to analyze voltage stability , 2011, 2011 International Conference on Advanced Power System Automation and Protection.

[5]  K. Dielmann,et al.  Virtual power plants (VPP) - a new perspective for energy generation? , 2003, Proceedings of the 9th International Scientific and Practical Conference of Students, Post-graduates Modern Techniques and Technologies, 2003. MTT 2003..

[6]  M. Ilic,et al.  Technical challenges in modernizing distribution electric power systems with large number of distributed generators , 2009, 2009 IEEE Bucharest PowerTech.

[7]  D. Thukaram,et al.  A new and fast technique for voltage stability analysis of a grid network using system voltage space , 1998 .

[8]  J.-C. Chow,et al.  On the evaluation of voltage collapse criteria , 1989, Conference Papers Power Industry Computer Application Conference.

[9]  C. Reis,et al.  A comparison of voltage stability indices , 2006, MELECON 2006 - 2006 IEEE Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference.

[10]  A. R. Wallace,et al.  Reduction of voltage violations from embedded generators connected to the distribution network by intelligent reactive power control , 2002 .

[11]  N. Kumar,et al.  Power flow models of static VAR compensator and static synchronous compensator , 2012, 2012 IEEE Fifth Power India Conference.

[12]  J. M. A. Myrzik,et al.  Voltage control by small hydro power plants integrated into a virtual power plant , 2012, 2012 IEEE Energytech.

[13]  Loi Lei Lai,et al.  Small hydro power plant analysis and development , 2011, 2011 4th International Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation and Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRPT).

[14]  R. M. Moharil,et al.  Mini-hydro power generation on existing irrigation projects: Case study of Indian sites , 2012 .

[15]  Abraham Lomi,et al.  Selection of Static VAR Compensator Location and Size for System Voltage Stability Improvement , 2000 .