An Accurate Method for Delay Margin Computation for Power System Stability

The application of the phasor measurement units and the wide expansion of the wide area measurement units make the time delay inevitable in power systems. The time delay could result in poor system performance or at worst lead to system instability. Therefore, it is important to determine the maximum time delay margin required for the system stability. In this paper, we present a new method for determining the delay margin in the power system. The method is based on the analysis in the s-domain. The transcendental time delay characteristics equation is transformed to a frequency dependent equation. The spectral radius is used to find the frequencies at which the roots cross the imaginary axis. The crossing frequencies are determined through the sweeping test and the binary iteration algorithm. A single machine infinite bus system equipped with automatic voltage regulator and power system stabilizer is chosen as a case study. The delay margin is calculated for different values of the power system stabilizer (PSS) gain, and it is found that increasing the PSS gain decreases the delay margin. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been proved through comparing it with the most recent published methods. The method shows its merit with less conservativeness and fewer computations.