Analysis of Power System Transient Stability of the Nigerian 330-kV Electricity Grid

Abstract

Faults on power system are inevitable and can occur at any time resulting into transient instability. Transient instability can cause loss of synchronism and possible damage to power equipment and consumer loads. Therefore, this study analyzed the transient stability (TS) of the Nigerian 330-kV, 34-bus power network. Power flow and swing equations describing the system steady and transient states were respectively analyzed using Newton-Rahpson and Runge-Kutta, fourth order numerical techniques to provide linear solution due to their non-linearity. Simulations were done and swing curves for different fault conditions obtained. The critical clearing time at which the simulated faults were cleared was determined. The results of load flow analyses revealed that buses 6, 10, 13, 14, and 17 with respective voltage magnitude of 0.937, 0.921, 0.938, 0.829 and 0.780 per unit violated voltage tolerance limit of 0.95 to 1.05 p.u. The system total active and reactive power losses were 57.62 MW and -70.62 MVar respectively. The obtained swing curve showed that for fault on bus 11 [line 9-11] generators 2, 3 and 7 lost synchronism after 1.0 s but other generators retained their stability. Similarly, for fault on bus 13 [line 10-14] generators 3 and 7 lost synchronism but other generators retained stability after 0.4 s. These results indicate that faults occurrence on generating stations of power system is unavoidable, but the clearance time must be short (few seconds) to avert total system collapse and loss of synchronism.