Measuring of Real Value of Short-circuit Power
in Island Operation Condition
Michal Kolcun, Martin Kanlik, Duan Medve, Zsolt onka
Department of Electric Power Engineering; Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
Technical University of Koice
Koice, Slovak Republic
Michal.Kolcun@tuke.sk, Martin.Kanalik@tuke.sk, Dusan.Medved@tuke.sk, Zsolt.Conka@tuke.sk
AbstractThis paper deals with the problematic of the actual
short-circuit power determination in real conditions. Presented
principle of a real value of short-circuit power determination in
arbitrary node of the power system is based on the measurement
of one cycle RMS voltage and current changes. Described should
be useful for determination of short-circuit power in the nodes
electrically far enough from any synchronous machines (mainly
from a generators of big power plants), in which the subtransient
and transient effects of synchronous machines can be neglected.
The comparison of the maximum short-circuit power computed
according to the IEC 60909-0 standard and the actual short-
circuit power obtained from the measurement of RMS voltage
and current changes in the island operation of a small network is
presented in this paper.
Keywordsshort-circuit power determination, system
impedance
I. INTRODUCTION
The short-circuit power term is quite frequently used in
electrotechnical practice whether in case of short-circuit
currents calculation for purposes of electric devices design or
in case of calculation of installed devices feedback effect to the
power quality (for example flicker or voltage unbalance). The
short-circuit power term is defined in IEC 60909-0 standard
and can be determined by calculation of the short-circuit
impedance for specific conditions of power system leading to
maximum or minimum short-circuit currents. Real conditions
are often different of those considered in calculations according
to mentioned standard, and the value of actual short circuit
power is often lower than the value of maximum short-circuit
power. The short-circuit power also determines the hardness of
the power system at given node, whereby it describes the
ability of the power system to withstand unwanted effects of
loads (for example) from the power quality point of view.
Many power quality problems caused by industrial loads are
fixed with an additional installation of very fast compensation
devices based on IGBT, in the present. Producers of such
devices often guarantee the power quality indexes
improvement by observance of certain value of short-circuit
power. The aim of this paper is to compare the results of the
short-circuit power determination according to the IEC
standard as well as in the real conditions in case of island
operation. The problematic of short-circuit current estimation
on the long-term (few hours) measurement is described in [4].
______________________________________________________________
This work was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry
of Education of Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences by the
projects VEGA No. 1/0388/13.
978-1-4673-6788-2/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE
This paper is focused on short-circuit power estimation on the
base of one-period RMS voltage and current changes.
II. DEFINITION OF THE SHORT-CIRCUIT POWER TERM
The IEC 60909-0 standard implements the term of initial
symmetrical short-circuit power as a fictitious value defined as
a multiplication of initial symmetrical short-circuit current,
nominal system voltage and the factor 3 hence:
S k = 3 Vn I k (1)
The initial symmetrical short-circuit current is used by the
IEC 60909-0 standard in connection with an internal
impedance of network source calculation in node Q, which is
given by the following formulae:
2
c VnQ
ZQ = (2)
S kQ
where c is a voltage factor and expresses the ratio between
the voltage of equivalent voltage source and the nominal
system voltage Vn divided by 3 . The voltage factor was
implemented from following reasons:
voltage fluctuation in dependence on time and
location,
tap changes of transformers,
neglecting of load and capacitive reactances,
generators and motors behavior during the transients.
It is clear from the equation (1), that the value of initial
symmetrical short-circuit power at the arbitrary node of power
system is possible to determine on the base of the calculation of
initial symmetrical short-circuit current. Determination of
three-phase short-circuit power at nodes placed electrically far
enough from any synchronous machines (mainly from the
generators of big power plants), in which the subtransient and
transient effects of synchronous machines can be neglected is
discussed in this paper. The initial symmetrical short-circuit
power term is replaced by the short-circuit power term in this
paper from that reason. The value of three-phase power is
commonly determined by transmission and distribution
companies for purposes of electric devices design.
Determination of initial symmetrical short-circuit current in
case of an ideal three-phase short-circuit at any node of power
system is not the aim of this paper, whereby it is described in
detail in many publications, for example in [1], [2], [3] and [4].
There is a theoretical description of an actual short-circuit
power determination based on the measurement of RMS
voltage and current changes in the feeder of any substation
with sufficiently large current changes presented in this paper.
This method is based on the determination of system
impedance and it is described in the next chapter as well as in
[5].
chosen the island operation; therefore all parameters were
known (parameters of sources, lines, transformers and loads).
A. Input parameters
There was assigned a part of the distribution system in
Slovakia, whose single-line diagram is shown in Fig. 1 for
measuring purpose. The power quality analyzers (ENA330
type of company Elcom) were installed in nodes 1 5. These
analyzers recorded the progress of RMS voltage and current
within the registration interval of 1 period (0.02 seconds). The
sampling frequency was set to 9 600 baud.

III. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SYSTEM IMPEDANCE

DETERMINATION FROM RMS VOLTAGE AND CURRENT
CHANGES
The idea of an actual short-circuit power determination is
quite simple. The base is to determine the value of system
impedance from the ratio of the positive sequence RMS
voltage change at the bus-bar caused by the positive sequence
RMS current change drown by the load (line) and the positive Fig. 1. Single-line diagram of the distribution network
sequence RMS current change according to next equation:
Vbus,(1) The source comprised of the series of diesel generators and
Z sys,(1) = (3)
I line,(1) transformers with voltage ratio 0.4/10.5 kV, which the total
impedance was calculated according to the standard IEC
where Zsys,(1) is the complex system (short-circuit) 60909-0, ZDG = (0.0762 + j0.62) . The reactance of the
impedance from the given bus-bar (substation) point of view, reactor was according to card data with the value of
Vbus,(1) is a complex positive sequence phase-to-ground XR = 0.242 . There are the parameters (resistance and
voltage change at the bus-bar caused by sudden complex reactance) of each overhead line in Tab. I and the parameters of
positive sequence current change of current drown by the line transformers are presented in Tab. II. Quantity Vbase represents
(Iline,(1)). The actual short-circuit power (Sk,actual) can be the nominal voltage value of the transformer that was used for
determined according to the next equation: the calculation of the transformer impedance.
2
E(1),
Sk, actual = 3 before
(4) TABLE I. PARAMETERS OF OVERHEAD LINES
Z sys,(1)
R () X ()
where E(1),before is the RMS positive sequence phase-to- Line 1 2.922 7.532
ground voltage of equivalent source at the beginning of the Line 2 1.467 4.326
voltage change given by (5), Zsys,(1) is the absolute value of Line 3 0.127 0.227
system impedance (Thevenin equivalent model) obtained from
the equation (3). The equivalent source voltage can be obtained
as follows: TABLE II. PARAMETERS OF TRANSFORMERS

E(1), before = Vbus, (1), before + Z sys,(1) I line,(1), before (5) R () X () Vbase (kV)
T1 0.3693 8.825 121
where Vbus,(1),before is the complex positive sequence phase- T2 0.0069 0.187 10.5
T3 0.0287 0.304 6.3
to-ground bus-bar voltage at the beginning of the voltage
change, Iline,(1),before is complex positive sequence current drown
by the line at the beginning of the current change. Impedance of the above mentioned devices was calculated
according to IEC 60909-0.
IV. MEASUREMENT OF SHORT-CIRCUIT POWER IN ISLAND The load consisted of a set of 6 asynchronous motors with
OPERATION CONDITIONS power P = 420 kW; respectively P = 530 kW, voltage
There was assigned a part of the distribution system for the U = 6 kV. Whereas only 4 of 6 asynchronous motors were
purpose of verifying the theoretical assumptions for supplied from the bus-bar, on which were installed current
determining the actual short-circuit power by the mentioned measurement, it was not possible to record the step RMS
expressions (3) to (5) where there were realized measurements current change in case of last 2 motors starting (event No. 7
of step changes of RMS voltages and currents. To ensure the and 8) in node No. 5, and thus to evaluate the magnitude of
conditions that the measured RMS voltage changes were short-circuit power in the case of start these engines.
caused only by measured changes of RMS currents there was
B. Procedure of measuring 15
Node 1
There were followed switching procedures realized to Node 2
measure the short-circuit power in island operation at Node 3
beginning: Node 4
Node 5
10

Initiating of dieselgenerators at nominal speed (in no

load condition);

I (pu)
Connecting of the transformer T1;
5
Connecting of the overhead line Line 1;
Connecting of the overhead line Line 2;
Connecting of the overhead line Line 3 together with
transformer T2 0
14:00 14:01
Connecting of transformer T3; Time

Sequential connecting of 6 asynchronous motors

(load). Fig. 3. RMS current curves during the connection of overhead line Line2 and
Line3

The mentioned particular steps of connections were

realized with the necessary delay to ensure the sufficient time The RMS voltage and current curves during the individual
interval for the transients fade out. asynchronous motors starting (events 3 8) are shown on the
following figures.

During the creation of the before mentioned electrical paths

(Fig. 1) there were captured the significant jumps of RMS
voltage and current in case of connection of Line 2 (event 1) Node 1
and in case of connection of Line 3 (together with transformers 1.15
Node 2
T2, event 2). The RMS voltage and current curves in case of Node 3
these two events are presented on Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. Node 4
1.1 Node 5

1.15
V (pu)

1.05
1.1

1.05 1

1
0.95
0.95
V (pu)

0.9
0.9
0.85 14:02 14:03 14:04 14:05 14:06
Node 1 Time
0.8 Node 2
Node 3 Fig. 4. RMS voltage curves during the subsequential asynchronous motors
0.75
Node 4 starting
0.7 Node 5

0.65
14:00 14:01
Time

Fig. 2. RMS voltage curves during the connection of overhead line Line2 and
Line3
 3.5 TABLE V. TABLE OF RMS VOLTAGE AND CURRENT JUMPS RECORDED
IN NODE NO. 3
Node 1
3 Node 2 event V1 (kV) V (kV) I (A) Sk,meas (MVA)
Node 3 1
Node 4 2 68,3 2,467 17,95 102
2.5
Node 5 3 68,2 1,432 8,54 83
4 68,2 0,634 4,79 105
2 5 68,1 1,369 8,33 85
68,1 0,857 5,13 83
I (pu)

6
7 68,1 1,622 11,21 96
1.5
8 68,9 1,077 8,69 115

TABLE VI. TABLE OF RMS VOLTAGE AND CURRENT JUMPS RECORDED

0.5 IN NODE NO. 4

event V1 (kV) V (kV) I (A) Sk,meas (MVA)

0
14:02 14:03 14:04 14:05 14:06 1
Time 2 5,92 0,244 193,1 83
3 5,92 0,140 115,3 87
4 5,91 0,050 37,4 78
Fig. 5. RMS current curves during the subsequential asynchronous motors
5 5,90 0,140 105,9 79
starting
6 5,90 0,070 68,5 102
7 5,90 0,125 128,2 107
8 5,90 0,090 77,9 90
The per-unit values shown on Fig. 2 to Fig. 5 were
calculated on base of nominal voltages presented on Fig. 1 and
with the base of power Sbase = 1 MVA. TABLE VII. TABLE OF RMS VOLTAGE AND CURRENT JUMPS RECORDED
IN NODE NO. 5
The values of RMS line-to-ground voltages and currents
(V, I), the RMS value of the line-to-ground voltage at the event V1 (kV) V (kV) I (A) Sk,meas (MVA)
beginning of the voltage change V1 and the value of actual 1
2
short-circuit power (Sk,meas) determined for each event
3 3,483 0,202 279,2 50
according to the expressions (3) and (4) are presented In 4 3,475 0,077 117,90 56
Tab. III to Tab. VII. 5 3,469 0,152 254,0 60
6 3,462 0,066 90,6 49
7
TABLE III. TABLE OF RMS VOLTAGE AND CURRENT JUMPS RECORDED
IN NODE NO. 1
8

event V1 (kV) V (kV) I (A) Sk,meas (MVA)

1 6,09 0,580 756,5 145 In case of each node, there were calculated more values of
2 6,10 0,181 224,1 138 actual short-circuit power. The average real values of short-
3 6,09 0,097 130,3 149 circuit power as well as values os short-circuit power
4 6,09 0,035 47,4 149 calculated according to IEC 60909-0 in each node are
5 6,09 0,086 123,6 159 presented in Tab. VIII. There is percentage difference between
6 6,09 0,046 58,8 141
7 6,09 0,071 99,1 154
these two kind of values presented in this table too. The
8 6,09 0,070 84,8 135 percentage difference was calculated as follows:

S k, IEC S k, meas,av
TABLE IV. TABLE OF RMS VOLTAGE AND CURRENT JUMPS RECORDED S k = 100 (6)
IN NODE NO. 2 S k, IEC
event V1 (kV) V (kV) I (A) Sk,meas (MVA)
1 68,32 8,464 62,95 104
TABLE VIII. THE SHORT-CIRCUIT POWER VALUES IN PARTICULAR NODES
2 68,29 2,839 18,71 92 DETERMINED BY CALCULATION AND MEASUREMENT
3 68,24 1,372 9,33 95
4 68,18 0,779 5,07 91 Node Vn (kV) Sk,IEC (MVA) Sk,meas,av (MVA) Sk (%)
5 68,14 1,349 8,94 92 1 10,5 140 146 4,3
6 68,11 0,637 4,37 95 2 110 101 99 2,0
7 68,12 1,309 9,76 104 3 110 98 96 2,0
8 68,11 1,227 10,64 121 4 10,5 100 89 11,0
5 6,3 59 54 8,5
 Note: In case of nodes 2 and 3 there was substituted to
expression (1) the nominal supply voltage of 110 kV, but the
nominal high voltage level of transformer T1 and T2 was
121 kV. This was also reflected in a higher value of the short-
circuit power at node No. 4 compared to the value at the node
No. 3.
V. CONCLUSION
The aim of measuring of a real value of short-circuit power
in island operation conditions was to verify the theoretical
assumptions that the network impedance value and
consequently the short-circuit power can be obtained by
measuring in the real network operation. Within the chosen
configuration of island operation there was ensured a basic
condition for the possibility of verification of the described
theory. This condition consisted in providing of a clear
connection between the recorded RMS voltage and current
changes. In other words, the value of short-circuit power can be
determined by measuring, only in that case if there was
recorded sufficiently large RMS voltage change, that was
caused only by recorded RMS current change. The results of
the calculated and measured values of short-circuit power
presented in Table VIII are confirming the usefulness of the
presented theory for determining the real value of the short-
circuit power. On the other hand, it should be noted that
described experimental measurements (in island operation) are
a special case and should be required to verify the theory
discussed in the context in case of larger systems or
interconnected power system. In the case of interconnected
power system, it will be difficult to determine the exact value
of the short-circuit power at a particular node for a given
network configuration. At the same time during the
measurement there will occur RMS voltage changes without
measured RMS current changes. Evaluation of the real value of
short-circuit power in such conditions will have to be carried
out using of statistical methods and with the relatively large
amount of measured data.
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