Field verification of an advanced high side voltage control at a hydro power station

An advanced high side voltage control (HSVC) that can improve power system stability by adding supplemental control to conventional generator excitation systems has been developed. Since the introduction of this advanced HSVC at the IEEE PES 2000 Summer Meeting, additional development has further improved the advanced HSVC as reported in a companion paper. This paper describes field verification results for the HSVC that were carried out on a hydro power plant of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Columbia River at The Dalles. The advanced HSVC was temporarily added to the existing digital automatic voltage regulators (AVRs) of two generators in a 22-machine hydro power plant. Various tests, such as confirmation of droop, performance of the cross-current suppression function, switching on and off of a nearby capacitor bank, and others, were successfully carried out. It was confirmed through these field verification tests that the advanced HSVC displayed beneficial impacts on voltage control and system stability as compared to a conventional AVR.