SEDC's Ability to Stabilize SSR: A Case Study on a Practical Series-Compensated Power System

Supplementary excitation damping controller (SEDC) has been widely acknowledged as one of the effective measures to stabilize subsynchronous resonance (SSR). However, how to quantify its stabilizing ability is still an open issue raising widespread concerns. There are few in-depth studies or conclusions in this aspect yet. This paper presents a quantitative measure of SEDC's ability to damp SSR, namely stabilizing ability index (SAI). It is defined as the percentage margin of the effective gain relative to the critical stability gain (CSG). The CSG is the minimum gain of SEDC to guarantee SSR stability, while the effective gain is the control gain of SEDC actually functioning following system disturbances. A practical system is used to investigate the various factors determining the effective gain, the CSG and thus the SAI, based on eigenvalue analysis as well as time-domain simulation. The dominant factors identified include: the total equivalent series-compensation degree of system, the parameters and operating status of the generator, the response time and ceiling voltage of the exciter, and the severity of the disturbance. Why and how these factors affect the control capability of SEDC is examined and thus a practical method is offered for the assessment of SEDC's ability to stabilize SSR.