An improved voltage control on large-scale power system

To achieve a better voltage-var control in the electric power transmission system, different facilities are used. Generators are equipped with automatic voltage regulators to cope with sudden and random changes voltage caused by natural load fluctuations or failures. Other devices like capacitors, inductors, transformers with on load tap changers are installed on the network. Faced with the evolution of the network and operating conditions, electricity utilities are more and more interested in overall and coherent control systems, automatic or not. These systems are expected to co-ordinate the actions of local facilities for a better voltage control (more stable and faster reaction) inside different areas of the network in case of greater voltage and var variations. They afford besides a better use of existing reactive resources. Also, installation of new devices can be avoided allowing economy of investment. With this frame of mind, EDF has designed a system called Co-ordinated Secondary Voltage Control (CSVC). It's an automatic closed loop system with a dynamic of a few minutes. It takes into account the network conditions (topology, loads), the voltage limits and the generator operating constraints. This paper presents recent improvements which allow the CSVC to control the voltage profile and different kinds of reactive means on a large-scale power system. Furthermore, this paper presents solution to spread out investment costs over several years, considering a deployment gradually extended.