Electromechanical Wave Analysis Through Transient Magnetic Modeling

Sudden changes in the status of an electrical power system involving generation, loading, or fault conditions result in disturbances in the system, which often cause undesired operation. These disturbances propagate through the system in the form of waves in the phase angle of the voltage until they disperse and normal conditions are restored. Electromechanical characteristics of these waves have been modeled in the past through discrete and continuum approaches. In this paper, a simplified method for numerically solving the governing continuum equations is presented. These equations are represented as electromagnetic equations so that software designed for electromagnetics can be used for continuum power systems. The ability to use commercial software leads to several advantages, among them increased flexibility and reduced computational time, as well as avoiding the need to work directly with tensor fields and Gaussian filters. Continuum network equations can be represented as either an electrostatic or magnetostatic problem, while continuum dynamics, such as generator swing equations, can be represented as electric circuits. The proposed model was tested on the highly anisotropic 27-bus New England system and compared with the continuum model of the same system, with comparable results.