Electrical System Stability

1. Steady State response

It is the ability of electrical machine or power system to regain its
original/previous state is called Steady state stability. Steady state occurs after the
system becomes settled and at the steady system starts working normally. Steady state
response of control system is a function of input signal and it is also called as forced
response.

Figure 1: Transient and steady state response.

2. Transient response
In electrical engineering, a transient response or natural response is the
response of a system to a change from equilibrium. The transient response is not
necessarily tied to "on/off" events but to any event that affects the equilibrium of the
system. The impulse response and step response are transient responses to a specific
input (an impulse and a step, respectively).

Figure 2: Damping oscillation.

Damping

Damping oscillation is a typical transient response, where the output value

oscillates until finally reaching a steady-state value. The picture shows an example of
an underdamped response. The response can be classified as one of three types of
damping that describes the output in relation to the steady-state response.
i. An underdamped response is one that oscillates within a decaying
envelope. The more underdamped the system, the more oscillations
and longer it takes to reach steady-state. Here damping ratio is always
ii.

<1.
A critically damped response is the response that reaches the steadystate value the fastest without being underdamped. It is related to
critical points in the sense that it straddles the boundary of
underdamped and overdamped responses. Here, damping ratio is
always equal to one. There should be no oscillation about the steady

iii.

state value in the ideal case.

An overdamped response is the response that does not oscillate about
the steady-state value but takes longer to reach than the critically
damped case. Here damping ratio is >1 it is the response of a system
with respect to the input as a function of time.

3. Contigency
Contingency can be defined as the non-functionality in the power system of a
device such as generator, transformer, transmission line and more or the change of the
device state which may include the possibility in a transformer substation of an
unplanned opened circuit breaker. The purpose of the contingency plan is to check the
change in the functioning of the device that will occur after the fault element is
removed.
There are three levels of problems in case a contingency occurs:
i. None- In this case it is possible to balance out the power system
without overloading any other element.
ii.

Severe- Damaging of various elements for example, lines and

transformers, due to their overload falls under this category.

iii.

Critical- When chances of power system collapse are high and swift
due to its instability.

It is must for every electric appliance for its operation that it is able to
recover from a first contingency leading to second contingency recovery also in the
future.

References
1. http://engineering.electrical-equipment.org/power-quality.html
2. http://www.electrical4u.com/transient-state-and-steady-state-response-ofcontrol-system/