Effects of Unsymmetrical Power Transmission

System on the Voltage Balance and Power Flow

Capacity of the Lines
Masoud Ghiafeh Davoudi

Amir Bashian

Jafar Ebadi

masoud.davodi@ieee.org

amir.bashian@gmail.com

ebadi@um.ac.ir

Department of Electrical Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

AbstractTransmission lines transposition and balance loading
in all phases are the initial criteria for analyzing a power system
with a symmetrical model. Untransposed transmission lines have
different effects on the power system like voltage unbalance,
reduced power-transmission capacity of the lines and increased
losses in the lines. In this paper, the effects of unsymmetrical
transmission lines on the performance quality of the power
system will be studied. First, the effects of asymmetry of the
power system on the balance of grid voltage will be discussed as
an important power quality parameter. Then, its effects on
decrease of power-transmission capacity of the lines will be
analyzed. Line coupling and problems such as divergence of
calculations would face the use of advanced existing software for
analyzing unsymmetrical networks with some difficulties. In this
paper, the amount of voltage unbalance in transmission and
132kV network of a case study power system located in Khorasan
province in Iran will be calculated. After calculating unused
capacity of transmission lines in this system, the financial
consequences of this problem will be discussed at the end.
Keywords-Assymetric Model; Voltage unbalance; Transmission
Capacity; DIgSILENT

I.

INTRODUCTION

Power system usually consists of three phases having equal

amplitudes and a shift of 120 degrees between each other in the
balanced conditions. Power system is mainly designed to work
under the balanced condition, which requires the following
criteria to be met [1]:
1- Transposed transmission lines
2- Balanced load distribution
Practically, power systems are almost unbalanced and may
be analyzed with the balanced models according to the system
and load conditions. However, in cases that the power
transmission lines are not transposed and the loads are not
distributed equally between the phases, using unbalanced
models for the system would lead to more accurate results.
In most of the available studies, transmission and subtransmission networks of the power system are analyzed with
symmetrical models; however, in the most optimistic case, the
transposition is done only on the long transmission lines. Thus,

the results achieved from the symmetrical models would have

less accuracy than the desired level.
Each unsymmetrical system can be divided to three
separate balanced systems, which are namely the positive,
negative and zero sequence systems. There would be no
negative and zero sequence components in a balanced system.
Inductance and capacitance of the phases are different with
each other in an untransposed transmission line and this
difference would be more clearly seen in long transmission
lines. Therefore, the power following through each phase
would differ from other phases and this difference would be
more in two circuit transmission lines [2].
In this paper, after introducing the definition and the main
causes of voltage unbalance, its impacts on the power system
will be discussed. Then, the effects of asymmetry in the
transmission lines on the available power-transmission capacity
of the transmission system will be analyzed. Using an
unsymmetrical model of a case study system created by
DIgSILENT, the voltage unbalance of the 132kv and 400kv
buses of this system has been evaluated. The financial
consequences of unused capacity of transmission lines in this
system will be discussed at the end. The economic evaluation
of transposing transmission lines would be discussed according
to the derived results.
II.

DEFINITION OF VOLTAGE UNBALANCE

For analyzing the amount of voltage unbalance and

enabling the comparison between unbalanced points of a
system, voltage unbalance factor is defined as one of the
following equations:
1- Having the amplitudes of symmetrical components, the
IEC1 definition could be used [3]:
%

100

where V1 and V2 are the positive and negative sequences of

voltage, respectively. The zero component may be used instead
of the negative component which yields:

International Electro Technical Commission

978-1-4577-1829-8/12/$26.00 2012 IEEE

100

The zero sequence cannot be present in some three phase

systems such as induction motors; therefore, the second
definition is less practically used. On the other hand, the first
definition is of great importance in induction motors, since it
shows the opposite force applied to the rotator which yields the
opposite-side torque [2].
2- Another definition is presented by National Electrical
Manufacturers Association [3]:
M aximum deviation from the A verage
%Unbalance =
(3)
A verage of the PhaseV oltage

III.

VOLTAGE UNBALANCE CREATION AND ITS IMPACTS

The main effective parameters on voltage balance in a

system are as follows:
1- Voltage on the buses of generators.
2- Geometry of transmission lines, since it affects the
impedance and admittance of the lines.
3- Currents in the loads and transformers.
The output voltage of generators is mostly balanced
because of the operation and structure of synchronous
machines; therefore, the first parameter does not play a great
role in voltage unbalance. The loads are tried to be equally
distributed between three phases so that the load does not
impose an unbalance in the system voltage. However, the
transformers and their connection to the grid can affect the
distribution of the loads and hence the voltage balance.
The other factor that may influence the voltage balance in
the system is the geometry of the overhead lines on the towers.
Due to this geometry, each phase might have a different
position to the ground, guard line and other phases comparing
with the lines of other phases. This would cause the difference
between the electrical parameters of the lines in the same
circuit. This difference is almost negligible in short and in long
but transposed lines.

IV.

UNUSED CAPACITY OF TRANSMISSION LINES

The governing equations on the linkage flux of a conductor

in a group of conductors yields the following equations for the
inductance of each phase of a three phase system:

La = 2 107 [ln

Lb = 2 10 7 [ ln

1
1
1
+ ln + 2 ln
]
D12
r
D 23

Lc = 2 107 [ 2 ln

(4)

1
1
1
+ ln
+ ln ]
D13
D 23
r

Where:
Dij: the distance between conductors of phase i and j
= 1120
(5)

r ' = r e 0.25

(6)

And r is the radius of the conductor.

In an unsymmetrical network, the derived values for these
inductances are different due to the difference in the geometry
of each phase to the ground and also other phases. Similarly,
the capacitances of three phases in an unsymmetrical network
are different. These differences will cause the currents and
hence the power flown in three phases not to be equal. This
may even lead to unused capacity of transmission lines, since
one phase may reach to its thermal limit, while the power flow
in other two phases might have a significant distance to its full
capacity.
The percentage of unused capacity of three phase
transmission lines is achieved from this equation:
unused capacity in the three phase system
average of power flow in three phases
= 1
100 (7)
max imum capacity of three phases

V.

PRESENTED UNSYMMETRICAL MODEL

The impedance matrix in a three phase balance system is:

Voltage unbalance may have destructive effects on the

power system equipments. Since little unbalance in voltages
can lead to excessive unbalance in currents, power system will
have more losses in the unbalance condition. The effects of
voltage unbalance are greater on some equipment such as
induction motors and power transformers [4, 5].
Different voltage problems can affect the power quality,
such as harmonics, overvoltage, under voltage and voltage
unbalance. Voltage unbalance has the greatest effect on the
core losses in power transformers and induction motors.
Moreover, the efficiency of induction motors is greatly
decreased in case of unbalance voltages. Therefore, the voltage
unbalance caused by unsymmetrical geometry of the lines
increases the losses in the system and the economic loss of this
problem is considerable [5].

1
1
1
+ 2 ln
+ ln
]
r
D12
D13

Zs
Z
m
Z m

Zm
Zs
Zm

Zm
Z m
Z s

(8)

Where:
Zs is the self impedance of each phase and Zm is the mutual
impedance between each pair of phases. Using the symmetrical
component transformation, one can convert the above matrix to
the impedance matrix in the following way:

1
1 1
1
A = 1 2
3
1 2

(9)

Z sym = A ZA

Z s + 2Z m
=
0

0
Zs Zm
0

Z s Z m

(10)

However, off-diagonal arrays in the above matrix would be

non-zero in an unsymmetrical system, since the self and mutual
impedances are different for three phases. Therefore, in an
unsymmetrical transmission line, using single-line diagrams
and conventional one phase modeling would result in
inaccurate results. In this paper, an unsymmetrical model for a
case-study system has been simulated to be valid for the
untransposed and unsymmetrical transmission lines.
Different geometrical and electrical parameters should be
taken into account to achieve the unsymmetrical model.
Geometrical parameters are height of the towers, position of
each phase on the tower with respect to the ground and other
phases and position of the ground wire. Electrical parameters
are number of bundles, dc and ac resistance of the wires and
the diameter of the wires. The unsymmetrical model presented
in this paper has been achieved using the DIgSILENT
software. After setting the geometrical and electrical
parameters for the case-study system, different problems
should be handled to run the unbalanced power flow such as
line coupling between two circuits placed on the same tower
VI.

According to [4], maximum voltage unbalance in the

demand side should never be more than 2%. It is to be noted
that the presented values for the percentage of voltage
unbalance factor (VUF %) in Table 1 are derived at the 132kv
and 400kv buses and might increase in the path to the end users.
Voltage unbalance frequency in 132kv and 400kv buses of
the case-study system are presented in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. As
seen in these figures, VUF % has exceeded the limit of 2% in
twenty seven 132kv buses while VUF % never reaches this limit
in 400kv buses.
Unbalance in voltages will increase the losses in high and
low voltage levels. In high voltage level, this unbalance affects
the operation of power transformers and increases the losses in
them. In more details, voltage unbalance changes the width of
hysteresis loop of the core. A little increase of the voltage of
one phase at the knee point of B-H curve of transformers
changes the width and hence the area of the hysteresis loop
significantly. The iron losses are relevant to this area; therefore,
more iron losses will appear. This voltage unbalance would be
present in the low voltage level and will increase the losses in
some loads such as induction motors and deduce their effective
lifetime.

PRACTICAL STUDY

The case study system is the transmission and subtransmission system of the Khorasan Province in Iran. This
system is consisted of ten 400kv, ninety four 132kv and twenty
one 63kv substations. This modeling and the unbalance power
flow have been done using the DIgSILENT software. The
derived results are presented in following two subsection of the
paper.
A. Voltage unbalance
After running the unbalance power flow on the derived
model, the voltage unbalance has been calculated for each bus
of the system using equation 1. The voltage unbalance for
some typical buses is presented in Table 1.
TABLE I.

Figure 1. VUF% frequency in 132kv buses

VOLTAGE UNBALANCE IN SOME TYPICAL BUSES

Bus Name

Voltage
(kV)

Ferdows

132

Kashmar

Pos.
Seq.

Neg.
Seq.

Zero.
Seq.

VUF%

0.91

0.029

3.19%

132

0.892

0.024

0.001

2.69%

Asadieh

132

0.854

0.039

0.001

4.57%

Gonabad

132

0.944

0.021

0.01

2.22%

Ghaen

132

0.959

0.02

2.09%

Torbat
jaam

132

0.969

0.014

1.44%

Bojnord

132

0.94

0.007

0.001

0.74%

Shirvan

400

1.018

0.008

0.001

0.79%

Torbat
jaam

400

0.989

0.014

0.001

1.42%
Figure 2. VUF% frequency in 400kv buses

B. Unused capacity of transmission lines

Having the power flow in each phase of the transmission
lines, the unused capacity of the transmission lines in the casestudy system have been calculated using equation 5 and some
typical values are presented in Table 2. Moreover, the
frequency of the unused capacity of the transmission lines of
the case-study system due to unbalance in the currents are
presented in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4.
TABLE II.

TYPICAL VALUES OF UNUSED CAPACITY OF TRANSMISSION

LINES IN THE CASE-STUDY SYSTEM

From

To

Voltage

Pa

Pb

Pc

(kV)

(MW)

(MW)

(MW)

Unused
Capacity

Shadmehr

Attar

132

5.27

5.13

6.56

13.82%

Shariati

Attar

132

6.94

7.56

8.19

7.65%

Birjand

Sarbishe

132

10.1

10.16

11.09

5.8%

Fariman

Torbat
jaam

132

0.01

9.35

10.87

10.36%

Shariati

Fariman

132

18.08

19.01

20.89

6.33%

Torbat
jaam

Ghaenat

400

33.8

37.73

40.14

7.27%

Ferdowsi

Neishabor

400

59.7

65.29

61.1

4.98%

The destructive effect of the untransposed transmission

lines on the capacity of the lines would be clearer if we notice
that the expenses of constructing one kilometer of a 132kv and
400kv transmission line is 70,000 and 150,000 dollars,
respectively. Hence, in a 242km transmission line in the 400kv
system, for example line MY908 in table 2 which has an
unused capacity of 7.27%, transposing the line would increase
its capacity. This released capacity is equal to 2,200,000 dollars
which is 6% of building a new 400kV transmission line with the
same length.
VII. CONCLUSION
After defining the effects of unbalance in an unsymmetrical
network, the unsymmetrical model of the case-study system
has been simulated and the values for voltage unbalance in the
buses and also the unused capacity of transmission lines has
been presented in this paper. Due to the increase in the losses
of power transformers, induction motors and transmission lines
in the presence of voltage unbalance caused by the asymmetry
in the system, the cost of operation of the system would
increase significantly. Moreover, untransposed transmission
lines will have significant amount of unused capacity. This
unused capacity would be released if a transposition is done on
the transmission lines, which will be more efficient with
respect to financial issues.
In modern transmission lines, the transposition of the lines
is done only in substations. These substations may be far from
each other and the line between them would be untransposed in
the long path between them. According to the results of this
paper, transposing medium and long transmission lines could
be effective in the system operation and should be analyzed in
future studies.
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[2]

Figure 3. Unused capacity of the 132kv transmission lines

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]
Figure 4. Unused capacity of the 400kv transmission lines

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