Power System Security

Introduction
A power system is said to be secured if credible loss of generating plant or
transmission circuit does not cause:
1. A sustained rise or fall in frequency above or below predetermined limit.
2. A sustained rise or fall in voltage that cant be brought within the acceptable
limit by voltage correction devices.
3. A sustained overloading of the circuit which cant be relieved by using spare
capacity or any pre-arranged reduction of demand.
4. The supply interruption to the consumer.
Credible loss is related to probability of an incident occurring such as loss of
generating unit or transmission line .From experience these probabilities can be
assessed and accordingly security arrangement can be made.
Security measures keep the system operating when components fail. For example
loss of generation equipment is taken care by maintaining a proper amount of
spinning or spare reserves so that remaining units can make up deficit without
violating the frequency limit or shedding any load. Similarly loss of transmission
network is taken care by maintain proper transmission flows and casing remaining
network to share the load. Since the time of component failure is unpredictable the
system must be operated at all time such that the system will not be left at the
dangerous position if any credible loss occurs. Generally power system equipment
operates without limits. Most pieces of equipment is protected by automatic devices
when their limit is violated. If any event occur in the system that leaves it operating
with limits violated, a series of further actions switch other equipments out of
service. Consequently a large part or entire of system may collapse which is known
as system black out.

Running Spare Capacity

Running spare generating plant capacity is necessary to meet the requirement of
the system security. The spare capacity of the running plant should be located
geographically throughout the system so that:
i.
ii.

iii.

The drop in the frequency due to the loss of the largest unit is halted
before the frequency limit is violated.
The redistribution of the power flows in the system resulting from the
replacement of a particular generating unit by running spare capacity will
not cause the overloading of any circuit.
The underestimation of the demand which comes too late to run
additional plant can be recovered.

Running spare capacity is provided by:

I.
II.
III.

Operating generating plant at less than full output.

Altering the operating conditions of pumped storage plant.
Gas turbine generator which can be started automatically by frequency
sensitive relays or remote control.

Beyond spinning reserve the unit commitment problem may involve various
classes of scheduled reserves or off line reserves such as quick start , diesel or
gas turbine, hydro and pumped hydro that cam be brought up to full capacity
quickly.

Hot Stand By Plants (Static Reserves)

The running spare capacity must be sufficient to ensure the security but must be
kept to minimum to reduce additional fuel cost. There are two contingencies in
power system.
1. When some of the spare capacity is used against the breakdown, the
capacity must be restored to normal value.
2. Change in the weather may lead to increased demand which was not
forecasted.
Hot stand by plants are used to cover these contingencies. Hot stand by plant is the
generator unit with boiler back up which can be brought on load in less than two
hours.

Physical Constraints to Security:

1. Network Constraints:

While designing the transmission line sufficient capacity is provided to

meet the security standards. It however becomes very uneconomical
to provide transmission capacity to allow complete merit order
operation if the cost of out of merit operation is less than the capital
charge on the additional transmission equipment.
Therefore when a section of the system is insecure because of the
outage of the transmission circuit the generating plant is run out the
merit, if necessary, to maintain security, The out of merit operation is
carried out as it is to be done only till the outage is rectified.

2. Inflexibility of the plant

In many occasion it may be necessary to run a generation plant

because of the very characteristics of the plant, if this is the case when
higher merit plant is available to meet the demand the uneconomical
results occur.

Inflexibilities of plants are:

a. Design limitation:

Thermal power plant:

In case of thermal plant minimum load limitations are generally
caused by fuel combustion stability and other design
constraints, in a plant with feed water provided by unit
evaporator the feed water is available only when the plant is
running. If such a system needs shut down it is necessary to run
at least one set running for supplying the feed water.
Hydro power plant:
Hydro electric plant with variable head is difficult to schedule
because of the input/output curve and variations of output with
head. In many hydro systems the generation of the power is
combined with flood control, release for irrigation, other
recreational activities. These associated activities may impose
limitations on scheduling of hydro plant

b. Incipient fault

Fault such as rotor earth fault cannot be rectified immediately

and therefore the circuit breaker cant be released unlike faults
in transmission line.

c. Starting losses

In case of thermal plant heat is expended in bringing the boiler

temperature back to working condition while starting. Similarly
radiation losses occur from the boiler when machine is off load.
These losses should be calculated and computed with out of
merit cost.

d. Minimum up time

In thermal power plant the unit should not be turned up

immediately , it should run for minimum time.

e. Minimum down time

In thermal plant once the unit is decommited it should not be

recommitted immediately, there should be minimum time gap
before recommision.

f. Crew Constraints

If a plant consists of two or more units they cant be turned on

and monitored simultaneously. To do so a fixed number of
operators required.

g. Coordination constraints

In a system if different plants like hydro, thermal etc are

interconnected there should be proper coordination among
them.

h. Fuel constraints:

The stock of the fuel should be considered in thermal plants and

in hydro amount of water stored and flowing should be
considered.

Effect of System interconnection , System diversity and Import /Export

1.System Interconnection :
It has 3 effects in security:
A: Paralleling:
When generating units are to be paralleled to a system or when two systems are to
be paralleled , care must be taken to be sure that proper conditions exist before the
paralleling switches are closed .If the required conditions are not made , unwanted
energy may flow at the time , the paralleling switches are closed which may have
adversed effect on system security .
B: Speed:
Since the point of interconnection may be far away from the generating units , use
of telephoning order or remote control should be made for adjustment of system
speed which if not done , the security system will be deteriorated.
C: Running spare capacity:
In emergency shutdown or outage of any of the units ,the load are to be shared by
other in such a way that their stability limit must not exceed.
If transient stability of other unit is exceeded, that will also be out of system .Hence,
there must be sufficient running space capacity within the system .Similarly, when
the line connecting the two systems goes out of order , the units importing power
will have their speed decreased and the one exporting power will experience
increase in speed. This decrease or increase in speed results in decrease or increase
in frequency of the system .Thereby, deteriorating the system security. Thus, fast
acting governer or sufficient spinning reserve must be arranged for system security
to be maintained.
2) System diversity:

The system diversity may go sometimes unexpectedly to lower side than the usual
value .This might effect the system security since the operator should shed power
of some area .The daily loadcurve of each plant gives the operator an idea of how
the load varies across different time in a day and he could plan accordingly.He,
thereby , takes decision on units to be loaded next and spinning reserves for the
different periods in a day.
3) Import /Export:
Since , import /Export is done through the tie-line , its effect is same as that of
interconnection .

UNIT COMMITMENT

Maintainan
ce

Unit

Economic
Economic

Scheduling

commitm
ent

Load
Load
Dispatch
Dispatch

Unit commitment is the process of finding what unit or combination of unit should
be used to supply the given load most economically .A great amount of money can
be saved by turning units off , i.e . de-commiting them , when they are not needed .
Unit commitment fits between maintenance scheduling and generation scheduling
in the management of generation resources. Since it is to be decided what units or
combination of units are to be used to supply a given load before the economic
Load Dispatch , the Unit Commitment problem is also called Pre-dispatch problem.
See class notes for remaining portion of unit commitment.