Laboratory model to teach power system stability

To teach and demonstrate the Power System Stability aspects to the undergraduate students, a laboratory model has been developed. Computer based simulation software´s are used to teach different aspects of power system by most of the Institutions. These simulation studies often do not demonstrate the physical sense of power system behavior to students. Moreover, making the students to visualize the effect of instability is a very big challenge faced by the teaching community. This paper describes the experimental set up built in the Electrical Engineering Department of Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, consisting of an alternator connected to infinite bus through parallel transmission lines. In this experimental setup, the generator is brought to instability by changing the operating conditions. Further, the oscillation is controlled and brought back to stability by controlling the excitation and line reactance. This gives the clear idea about stability and its enhancement to the students.