Determination of load shedding to provide voltage stability

A computationally simple algorithm is developed for studying the load shedding problem in emergencies where an ac power flow solution cannot be found for the stressed system. The proposed algorithm is divided into two sub-problems: restoring solvability sub-problem and improving voltage stability margin (VSM) sub-problem. Linear optimization (LP)-based optimal power flow (OPF) is applied to solve each sub-problem. In restoring solvability sub-problem, rather than taking restoring power flow solvability as direct objective function, the objective function of maximization of voltage magnitudes of weak buses is employed. In VSM sub-problem, the traditional load shedding objective is extended to incorporate both technical and economic effects of load shedding and the linearized VSM constraint was added into the LP-based OPF. Case studies with a real 682 bus system are presented. The simulation results show that the proposed load shedding algorithm is effective, fast in finding the load shedding scheme to solve the problem of restoring solvability and improving VSM. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.