Ali T. Al-Awami, M. A. Abido, and Y. L.

Abdel-Magid

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON EFFECTIVENESS OF ROBUST

FACTS STABILIZERS FOR POWER SYSTEM STABILITY
ENHANCEMENT
Ali T. Al-Awami, M. A. Abido*
Electrical Engineering Department,
King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals,
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
and Y. L. Abdel-Magid
Electrical Engineering Program,
The Petroleum Institute,
Abu Dhabi, UAE

1. INTRODUCTION
Power system stabilizers (PSSs) have been used in the last few decades to serve the purpose of enhancing power
system damping to low frequency oscillations. PSSs have proved to be efficient in performing their assigned tasks. A
wide spectrum of PSS tuning approaches has been proposed [1–3]. However, they may adversely affect voltage profile
and may not be able to suppress oscillations resulting from severe disturbances, such as three-phase faults at generator
terminals.
On the other hand, FACTS devices have shown very promising results when used to improve power system steady-
state performance. In addition, because of the extremely fast control action associated with FACTS-device operations,
they have been very promising candidates for utilization in power system damping enhancement. The first generation
(G1) FACTS devices include SVC, TCPS, and TCSC. It has been found that SVCs can be effective in damping power
system oscillations if a supplementary feedback signal is applied [4–6]. Compared with other FACTS devices, little
attention has been paid to TCPS modeling and control. Based on the equal area criterion, the TCPS control problem has
also investigated using linear control techniques [7–9]. Many research efforts have been devoted to the control of TCSC.
Chen et al. designed a state feedback TCSC controller based on the pole placement technique [10]. Other TCSC optimal
and nonlinear control schemes proposed in the literature [11–13].
A unified power flow controller (UPFC) is the most promising device in the FACTS concept. Several trials have been
reported in the literature to model a UPFC for steady-state and transient studies. Based on Nabavi–Iravani model [14],
Wang developed two UPFC models [15–16] which have been linearized and incorporated into the Heffron-Phillips
model.
In this paper, a comparison between PSS, G1 FACTS devices (i.e. TCSC, TCPS, SVC), and UPFC in damping
system low frequency oscillations is carried out. A weakly-connected system equipped with the five stabilizers, one at a
time, is used in this study. The stabilizers are designed individually. The problem of damping controller design is
formulated as an optimization problem to be solved using PSO. In all controllers, the widely used lead–lag scheme is
considered. Damping torque coefficient analysis and non-linear simulations are used to compare the effectiveness of the
proposed controllers to damp low frequency oscillations of the considered system.

* Address for correspondence:

KFUPM Box 183
King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals,
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
E-mail: mabido@kfupm.edu.sa

Paper Received 11 December 2006; Revised 31 March 2008; Accepted 4 June 2008

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 Ali T. Al-Awami, M. A. Abido, and Y. L. Abdel-Magid

2. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Figure 1 shows a single-machine infinite-bus (SMIB) system equipped with the three G1 FACTS devices.

Figure 1. SMIB power system equipped with G1 FACTS devices

2.1. Modeling of Power System with G1 FACTS Devices
The generator is represented by the third-order model comprising of the electromechanical swing equation and the
generator internal voltage equation. The non-linear model of the SMIB system of Figure 1 is:
•
δ = ωb (ω − 1) (1)
•
ω = ( Pm − Pe − D(ω − 1)) / M (2)
•
E q' = (E fd − (x d − x d' )i d − E q' ) /T do' (3)

•
E fd = ( K A (Vref − v + u PSS ) − E fd ) / TA (4)

where Pm and Pe are the input and output power, respectively and Pe = v d i d + v q i q , v = (v d2 + v q2 )1/ 2 , v d = x q i q ,
vq = Eq' − xd' id .

M and D the inertia constant and damping coefficient, respectively; ωb the synchronous speed; δ and ω the rotor angle
and speed, respectively; Eq', E'fd, and v the generator internal, field and terminal voltages, respectively; T'do the open
circuit field time constant; xd, x'd, and xq the d-axis reactance, d-axis transient reactance, and q-axis reactance,
respectively; KA and TA the exciter gain and time constant, respectively; Vref the reference voltage; and uPSS the PSS
control signal.
It is worth mentioning that the optimal location of the shunt compensation through SVC is the middle of the
transmission line [4].
The non-linear dynamic equations can be linearized around a given operating point to give the linear model given
below:
x& = Ax + Bu (5)
where the state vector x and control vector u are
T
x = ⎡⎣ ∆δ ∆ω ∆E q′ ∆E fd ⎤⎦ (6)

u = [ ∆ u PSS ∆B SV C ∆X TCSC ∆ΦTCPS ]T (7)

⎡ 0 ωb 0 0 ⎤
⎢ ⎥
⎢ − K1 −
D K
− 2 0 ⎥
⎢ M M M ⎥ (8)
A = ⎢⎢ K4 K3 1 ⎥
⎥
− 0 −
⎢ T do′ T do′ T do′ ⎥
⎢ K K KAK6 ⎥
⎢− A 5 1 ⎥
0 − −
⎣⎢ T A TA T A ⎦⎥

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 Ali T. Al-Awami, M. A. Abido, and Y. L. Abdel-Magid

⎡ 0 0 0 0 ⎤
⎢ K pB K pX K p Φ ⎥⎥
⎢ 0 − − −
⎢ M M M ⎥ (9)
⎢ ⎥
B =⎢ K qB K qX K qΦ ⎥
0 − − − '
⎢ T do' T do' T do ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢KA K K K K K A Kv Φ ⎥
⎢T − A vB − A vX −
⎣ A TA TA T A ⎥⎦

BSVC, XTCSC, and ΦTCPS are the SVC, TCSC, and TCPS control signals, respectively; and K1 – K6, KpB, KqB, KvB, KpX, KqX,
KvX, KpΦ, KqΦ, and KvΦ are linearization constants. For application of an individual controller, the corresponding column
of B matrix given in (9) is considered.
2.2. PSS and FACTS-Based Stabilizers
The PSS structure to be considered is the very widely used lead–lag controller, whose transfer function is

sTw ⎛ 1 + sT1i ⎞ ⎛ 1 + sT 3i ⎞
upssi= K i ⎜ ⎟⎜ ⎟ ∆ωi (10)
1 + sTw ⎝ 1 + sT 2i ⎠ ⎝ 1 + sT 4i ⎠

The SVC damping controller is of the structure shown in Figure 2. A similar structure is used for the TCSC and
TCPS

Figure 2. SVC with lead–lag supplementary controller

2.3. Modeling of Power System with UPFC

Figure 3 shows a SMIB system equipped with a UPFC. The UPFC consists of an excitation transformer (ET), a
boosting transformer (BT), two three-phase GTO based voltage source converters (VSCs), and a DC link capacitor. The
four input control signals to the UPFC are mE, mB, δE, and δB, where
mE is the excitation amplitude modulation ratio,
mB is the boosting amplitude modulation ratio,
δE is the excitation phase angle, and
δB is the boosting phase angle.

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Figure 3. SMIB power system equipped with UPFC

The UPFC damping controllers are of the structure shown in Figure 4, where u can be mE, mB, or δB. In order to
maintain the power balance between the series and shunt converters, a DC voltage regulator must be incorporated. The
DC voltage is controlled through modulating the phase angle of the ET voltage, δE. Therefore, the δE damping controller
to be considered is that shown in Figure 5, where the DC voltage regulator is a PI-controller.

Figure 4. UPFC with lead-lag controller

Figure 5. UPFC with lead–lag controller and DC voltage regulator

2.4. Objective Function and Stabilizer Design
In this study, several loading conditions, including nominal, light, heavy, and leading power factor without and with
system parameter uncertainties, are considered simultaneously to ensure the robustness of the proposed stabilizers. To
select the best stabilizer parameters that enhance most the power system transient performance, the problem is
formulated so as to optimize a selected objective function J subject to some inequality constraints, which are the
maximum and minimum limits of each controller gain K and time constants T1–T4.
In this work,

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 Ali T. Al-Awami, M. A. Abido, and Y. L. Abdel-Magid

J=min{ζi} (11)
where ζi is a vector constituting the damping ratios that correspond to all the complex modes of all the operating points
under consideration.
Hence, the design problem can be formulated as:
maximize J
Subject to

K min ≤ K ≤ K max

Timin ≤ Ti ≤ Timax , i=1, 2, 3, and 4.

The proposed approach employs PSO [3] to search for the optimum parameter settings of the given controllers.
3. SIMULATION RESULTS
3.1. Stabilizer Design
To ensure the robustness of the designed stabilizer over a wide range of operating conditions, several loading
conditions including nominal, light, heavy, and leading Pf conditions have been taken into consideration in the design
process. These conditions are considered without and with system parameter uncertainties, such as machine inertia, line
impedance, and field time constant. Therefore, the total number of operating conditions considered during the design
process is 16, as given in Table 1. It is worth mentioning that the PSS and FACTS-based stabilizers have been designed
individually.

Table 1. Loading Conditions and Parameter Uncertainties Considered in the Design Stage
Loading Condition (Pe, Qe) pu Parameter Uncertainties
Nominal (1.0, 0.015) No parameter uncertainties
Light (0.3, 0.100) 30% increase of line reactance X
Heavy (1.1, 0.100) 25% decrease of machine inertia M
Leading Pf (0.7, –0.30) 30% decrease of field time constant T 'do

PSO is used to optimize the parameters of each controller, one at a time, that maximize the minimum damping ratios
of all the complex eigenvalues associated with the 16 operating points simultaneously. That is, in every iteration of the
optimization process, the damping ratios corresponding to all the complex modes of the 16 operating points are stacked
in a vector ζi. Then, the minimum damping ratio is assigned to J, where J is the objective function to be maximized by
the optimizer. The final settings of the optimized parameters for the proposed stabilizers are given in Table 2.

Table 2. The Optimal Parameter Settings of the Individual and Coordinated Designs

G1 FACTS Devices UPFC

PSS (δE )
SVC TCSC TCPS
K 19.582 300.00 9.7630 54.613 100.00
T1 4.3897 4.5732 3.4177 1.7740 0.0868
T2 0.0100 2.2747 0.8224 0.5512 1.2140
T3 0.1601 0.0100 3.2050 1.3387 5.0000
T4 1.8253 0.2338 0.8392 2.8446
1.1200
ζ 0.3300 0.1602 0.3879 0.6271 0.4548

For reference, Table 3 lists the open-loop eigenvalues and the corresponding damping ratios associated with the EM
modes of all the 16 operating points considered in the robust design process. To find these eigenvalues, it is assumed that
none of the FACTS devices is in service. It is evident that all these modes are unstable.

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Table 3. Open-Loop Eigenvalues and Corresponding Damping Ratios (Bold) Associated with the EM Modes of all
the 16 Points Considered in the Robust Design Process
30% decrease of
No. parameter 30% increase of 25% decrease of
Loading field time constant
uncertainties line reactance X machine inertia M
T 'do
Nominal (N) 0.52±6.59i, –0.08 0.58±6.09i, –0.10 0.61±7.51i, –0.08 0.51±6.75i, –0.08
Light (L) 0.03±6.36i, –0.01 0.04±5.89i, –0.01 0.04±7.33i, –0.01 0.03±6.37i, –0.01
Heavy (H) 0.63±6.08i, –0.10 0.70±5.32i, –0.13 0.75±6.91i, –0.11 0.60±6.276i, –0.10
Leading Pf (P) 0.21±6.66i, –0.03 0.25±6.325i, –0.04 0.25±7.65i, –0.03 0.21±6.73i, –0.03

To compare the performance of the proposed stabilizers, damping torque coefficient analysis and nonlinear time-
domain simulations are carried out. It is worth mentioning that all the time domain simulations are carried out using the
nonlinear power system model.
3.2. Damping Torque Coefficient
To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed stabilizers, the damping torque coefficient (Kd) has been estimated with
PSS and FACTS-based stabilizer when designed individually. Figure 6 shows Kd versus the loading variations with the
five stabilizers. For the system studied, Figure 6 shows that:
• The TCPS is the most effective stabilizer at light loading condition. However, the TCSC becomes the most
effective one at nominal and heavy loading.
• The SVC provides the least amount of damping to the system EM mode.
• The TCPS and UPFC are very robust to system loading conditions.

Figure 6. Damping coefficient with load variations, Q = 0.0 pu.

3.3. Time-Domain Simulations
The nonlinear time-domain simulations are carried out at the nominal loading condition specified previously. The
torque angle deviations for a 6-cycle three-phase fault at nominal loading condition is shown in Figure 7.
It can be concluded that for the considered system:
• UPFC provides the least overshoot while PSS provides the highest overshoot in both cases.
• TCPS, TCSC, and UPFC enhance greatly the first swing stability.

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 Ali T. Al-Awami, M. A. Abido, and Y. L. Abdel-Magid

Figure 7. Rotor angle response to 6-cycle fault disturbance for nominal loading
In addition, Figure 8 shows the terminal voltages for a 6-cycle three-phase fault near to the infinite bus at nominal
loading condition. For the system studied, it can be observed from these figures that:
• Using an SVC or a PSS, the terminal voltage takes quite a long time to settle.
• Among the G1 FACTS devices, the use of TCSC results in the shortest setting time, but with the largest undershoot.
• The use of UPFC gives rise to the most superior terminal voltage response, in terms of both the settling time and
undershoot.

Figure 8. Terminal voltage response to 6-cycle fault disturbance for nominal loading

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4. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a comparative study among PSS, G1 FACTS-based controllers, and UPFC-based controllers has been
carried out, where the effectiveness of these controllers in enhancing power system stability has been assessed. A particle
swarm optimization technique has been proposed to search for the optimal controller parameter settings that optimize an
eigenvalue-based objective function. To guarantee the robustness of the proposed controllers, the design process is
carried out considering a wide range of operating conditions. To compare the effectiveness of the proposed stabilizers
over the considered system, damping torque coefficient analysis and nonlinear time domain simulation analysis have
been carried out. It can be concluded that the system performance with the UPFC-based controller is superior compared
to that with other controllers where the overshoots, settling time, and first swing stability have been greatly improved for
the system considered.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals for the support of this work.
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