ECE 476

Power System Analysis

Lecture 1:Introduction

Prof. Tom Overbye

Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
overbye@illinois.edu
About Prof. Tom Overbye

• Professional
– Received BSEE, MSEE, and Ph.D. all from
University of Wisconsin at Madison (83, 88, 91)
– Worked for eight years as engineer for an electric
utility (Madison Gas & Electric)
– Have been at UI since 1991, doing teaching and doing
research in the area of electric power systems
– Developed commercial power system analysis
package, known now as PowerWorld Simulator. This
package has been sold to about 600 different
corporate entities worldwide
– DOE investigator for 8/14/2003 blackout
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About Prof. Tom Overbye

• Nonprofessional
– Married to Jo
– Have three children
• Tim age 21
• Hannah age 19
• Amanda age 17
– Live in country by Homer on
the Salt Fork River
– We’ve homeschooled our kids
all the way through, with Tim
now starting his fourth year
at UIUC in ME and Hannah her
second year in psychology
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About Iyke Idehen

• 3rd year graduate student

– BSc (ECE, University of Benin, Nigeria)
Hollywood, 2014
– MSc (EE, Tuskegee University, Alabama)

– Research Area
• Power Systems and Control

• Data visualization

– Advisor: Prof. Tom Overbye

– Hobbies & Interests: Soccer, Music, Travel Soccer field by FAR/PAR (2014)
Courtesy: Won Jang

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 Simple Power System
• Every power system has three major
components
– generation: source of power, ideally with a
specified voltage and frequency
– load: consumes power; ideally with a constant
resistive value
– transmission system: transmits power; ideally as
a perfect conductor

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Complications

• No ideal voltage sources exist

• Loads are seldom constant
• Transmission system has resistance, inductance,
capacitance and flow limitations
• Simple system has no redundancy so power system
will not work if any component fails

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Notation - Power

• Power: Instantaneous consumption of energy

• Power Units
• Watts = voltage x current for dc (W)
• kW – 1 x 103 Watt
• MW – 1 x 106 Watt
• GW – 1 x 109 Watt
• Installed U.S. generation capacity is about
1000 GW ( about 3 kW per person)
• Maximum load of Champaign/Urbana about 300
MW
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Notation - Energy

• Energy: Integration of power over time; energy is what

people really want from a power system
• Energy Units
– Joule = 1 Watt-second (J)
– kWh = Kilowatthour (3.6 x 106 J)
– Btu = 1055 J; 1 MBtu=0.292 MWh
– One gallon of gas has about 0.125 MBtu (36.5 kWh);
• U.S. electric energy consumption is about 3600 billion
kWh (about 13,333 kWh per person, which means on
average we each use 1.5 kW of power continuously)

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Power System Examples

• Electric utility: can range from quite small, such as

an island, to one covering half the continent
– there are four major interconnected ac power systems in
North American, each operating at 60 Hz ac; 50 Hz is
used in some other countries.
• Airplanes and Spaceships: reduction in weight is
primary consideration; frequency is 400 Hz.
• Ships and submarines
• Automobiles: dc with 12 volts standard
• Battery operated portable systems

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North America Interconnections

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Electric Systems in Energy Context

• Class focuses on electric power systems, but we

first need to put the electric system in context of
the total energy delivery system
• Electricity is used primarily as a means for energy
transportation
• Use other sources of energy to create it, and it is usually
converted into another form of energy when used
• About 40% of US energy is transported in electric
form
• Concerns about need to reduce CO2 emissions and
fossil fuel depletion are becoming main drivers for
change in world energy infrastructure
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 Looking at the 2015 Energy Pie:
Where the USA Got Its Energy
Biomass, 4.8 Wind, 1.9 About 40% of our energy is
Hydro, 2.5
Nuclear, 8.6
consumed in the form of electricity, a
percentage that is gradually
Petroleum,
36.2
increasing. The vast majority on the
Natural Gas,
29 non-fossil fuel energy is electric!
Coal, 16
In 2015 we got about 1.9% of
our energy from wind and 0.6%
About 81% Fossil Fuels from solar (PV and solar thermal),
0.2% from geothermal
(86% in 1990 and 2000)

Total of 97.5 Quad; 1 Quad = 293 billion kWh (actual), 1 Quad =

98 billion kWh (used, taking into account efficiency)
Source: EIA Monthly Energy Review, July 2016 11
US Historical Energy Usage

Source: EIA Monthly Energy Review, July 2016

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Renewable Energy Consumption

Source: EIA Monthly Energy Review, July 2016

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Growth in US Wind Power Capacity

The quick
development
time for wind
of 6 months
to a year
means that
changes in
federal tax
incentives
can have
an almost
immediate
impact on
Source: AWEA Wind Power Outlook 2 Qtr, 2016 construction
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Wind Capacity Installations by State

Source: AWEA Wind Power Outlook 2 Qtr, 2016 15

The World

Source: EIA, International Energy Outlook 2016

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Energy Economics

• Electric generating technologies involve a tradeoff

between fixed costs (costs to build them) and
operating costs
• Nuclear and solar high fixed costs, but low operating
costs (though cost of solar has decreased substantially
recently)
• Natural gas/oil have low fixed costs but can have higher
operating costs (dependent upon fuel prices)
• Coal, wind, hydro are in between
• Also the units capacity factor is important to
determining ultimate cost of electricity

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Ball park Energy Costs

Energy costs depend

upon the capacity factor
for the generator.
The capacity factor is the
ratio of the electricity
actually produced,
divided by its maximum
potential output. It is
usually expressed on an
annual basis.
Source: Steve Chu and Arun Majumdar, “Opportunities and challenges for a
sustainable energy future,” Nature, August 2012, Figure 6
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Natural Gas Prices 1997 to 2015

Marginal cost for natural gas fired electricity price

in $/MWh is about 7-10 times gas price
Source: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdW.htm 19
Coal Prices have Fallen
Substantially from Five Years Ago
July 2016 prices
per ton range
from $8.70 to
$43.35

BTU content per pound varies between about 8000

and 15,000 Btu/lb, giving costs of around $1 to 2/Mbtu
Source: eia.gov/coal
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 Solar PV Prices

Image: http://cleantechnica.com/2015/08/13/us-solar-pv-cost-fell-50-5-years-government-report/screen-shot-2015-08-12-
at-12-33-53-pm/
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Course Syllabus

• Introduction and review of phasors & three phase

• Transmission line modeling
• Per unit analysis and change of base
• Models for transformers, generators, and loads
• Power flow analysis and control
• Economic system operation/restructuring
• Short circuit analysis
• Transient stability
• System protection
• Distribution systems
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Brief History of Electric Power

• First real practical uses of electricity began with the

telegraph (1860's) and then arc lighting in the 1870’s
• Early 1880’s – Edison introduced Pearl Street dc
system in Manhattan supplying 59 customers
• 1884 – Sprague produces practical dc motor
• 1885 – invention of transformer
• Mid 1880’s – Westinghouse/Tesla introduce rival ac
system
• Late 1880’s – Tesla invents ac induction motor
• 1893 – Three-phase transmission line at 2.3 kV
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History, cont’d

• 1896 – ac lines deliver electricity from hydro

generation at Niagara Falls to Buffalo, 20 miles
away; also 30kV line in Germany
• Early 1900’s – Private utilities supply all customers
in area (city); recognized as a natural monopoly;
states step in to begin regulation
• By 1920’s – Large interstate holding companies
control most electricity systems

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History, cont’d

• 1935 – Congress passes Public Utility Holding

Company Act to establish national regulation, breaking
up large interstate utilities (repealed 2005)
• This gave rise to electric utilities that only operated in one state
• 1935/6 – Rural Electrification Act brought electricity
to rural areas
• 1930’s – Electric utilities established as vertical
monopolies
• Frequency standardized in the 1930’s

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Vertical Monopolies

• Within a particular geographic market, the electric

utility had an exclusive franchise
Generation In return for this exclusive
franchise, the utility had the
Transmission obligation to serve all
existing and future customers
at rates determined jointly
Distribution
by utility and regulators
Customer Service
It was a “cost plus” business

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Vertical Monopolies

• Within its service territory each utility was the only

game in town
• Neighboring utilities functioned more as colleagues
than competitors
• Utilities gradually interconnected their systems so
by 1970 transmission lines crisscrossed North
America, with voltages up to 765 kV
• Economies of scale keep resulted in decreasing
rates, so most every one was happy

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History, cont’d -- 1970’s

• 1970’s brought inflation, increased fossil-fuel

prices, calls for conservation and growing
environmental concerns
• Increasing rates replaced decreasing ones
• As a result, U.S. Congress passed Public Utilities
Regulator Policies Act (PURPA) in 1978, which
mandated utilities must purchase power from
independent generators located in their service
territory (modified 2005)
• PURPA introduced some competition

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PURPA and Renewables

• PURPA, through favorable contracts, caused the

growth of a large amount of renewable energy in the
1980’s (about 12,000 MW of wind, geothermal, small
scale hydro, biomass, and solar thermal)
– These were known as “qualifying facilities” (QFs)
– California added about 6000 MW of QF capacity during the
1980’s, including 1600 MW of wind, 2700 MW of
geothermal, and 1200 MW of biomass
– By the 1990’s the ten-year QFs contracts written at rates of
$60/MWh in 1980’s, and they were no longer profitable at the
$30/MWh 1990 values so many sites were retired or
abandoned
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Abandoned Wind Farm Need South
Point in Hawaii

Source: Prof. Sanders

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