31
Voltage Sags
Math H.J. Bollen
STRI
31.1 Voltage Sag Characteristics ............................................. 31 -1
Voltage Sag Magnitude—Monitoring.Origin of Voltage
Sags.Voltage Sag Magnitude—Calculation.Propagation of
Voltage Sags.Critical Distance.Voltage Sag Duration.
Phase-Angle Jumps.Three-Phase Unbalance
31.2 Equipment Voltage Tolerance......................................... 31 -8
Voltage Tolerance Requirement.Voltage Tolerance
Performance.Single-Phase Rectifiers.Three-Phase
Rectifiers
31.3 Mitigation of Voltage Sags............................................ 31 -13
From Fault to Trip.Reducing the Number of Faults.
Reducing the Fault-Clearing Time.Changing the Power
System.Installing Mitigation Equipment.Improving
Equipment Voltage Tolerance.Different Events and
Mitigation MethodsVoltage sags are short duration reductions in rms voltage, mainly caused by short circuits and starting of
large motors. The interest in voltage sags is due to the problems they cause on several types of equipment.
Adjustable-speed drives, process-control equipment, and computers are especially notorious for their
sensitivity (Conrad et al., 1991; McGranaghan et al., 1993). Some pieces of equipment trip when the rms
voltage drops below 90% for longer than one or two cycles. Such a piece of equipment will trip tens of
times a year. If this is the process-control equipment of a paper mill, one can imagine that the costs due
to voltage sags can be enormous. A voltage sag is not as damaging to industry as a (long or short)
interruption, but as there are far more voltage sags than interruptions, the total damage due to sags is
still larger. Another important aspect of voltage sags is that they are hard to mitigate. Short interruptions
and many long interruptions can be prevented via simple, although expensive measures in the local
distribution network. Voltage sags at equipment terminals can be due to short-circuit faults hundreds of
kilometers away in the transmission system. It will be clear that there is no simple method to
prevent them.
31.1 Voltage Sag Characteristics
An example of a voltage sag is shown inFig. 31.1.^1 The voltage amplitude drops to a value of about 20%
of its pre-event value for about two and a half cycles, after which the voltage recovers again. The event
shown in Fig. 31.1 can be characterized as a voltage sag down to 20% (of the pre-event voltage)
for 2.5 cycles (of the fundamental frequency). This event can be characterized as a voltage sag with a
magnitude of 20% and a duration of 2.5 cycles.
(^1) The datafile containing these measurements was obtained from a Website with test data set up for IEEE project
group P1159.2: http:==grouper.ieee.org=groups= 1159 = 2 =index.html.