Intra-plant reactive power-voltage control: Practices, drawbacks and challenges

The paper discusses reactive power-voltage (Q-V) control in a multi-machine steam power plant (SPP). After briefly introducing some of the basic characteristics of synchronous generator´s voltage control through automatic voltage regulators, the practices of widely applied manual voltage references setting for Q-V control in SPP is illustrated through several examples of SPP response recorded at site. Further the case studies were developed with the emphasis on the drawbacks of manual intra-plant Q-V control by building a mathematical model of realistic SPP in Matlab-Simulink. Relying on noticed drawbacks the paper highlights the requirements for enhancing SPP reactive power response and voltage support to the power system by coordinated Q-V control at power plant level. Finally, the paper illustrates the achieved performances of coordinated Q-V controller in real SPP.