A secondary voltage regulation approach for Hydro-Quebec in transmission level

This paper presents a secondary voltage control that applies discrete controllers to regulate the voltage in the Hydro-Quebec power network. Firstly, an artificial intelligence methodology is presented for partitioning the Hydro-Quebec network into smaller and separated areas. The proposed methodology uses a self-organizing map (SOM) and is based on an original concept in which competitive and learning vector quantization (LVQ) neural networks are used to partition the power system. Secondly, pilot buses are chosen to represent the most controllable buses in each area. Finally, discrete controllers are designed to overcome and avoid propagation of disturbances on the network. The proposed methodology and the results obtained with the Hydro-Quebec network are presented in this paper and show the effectiveness and performance of the controllers. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.