SUMMARYThis paper proposes an online detection method for power system voltage instability, which considers the internal impedances of generators and the voltage-dependent and recovery characteristics of the electric loads. First, a novel voltage stability analysis method based on the concept of short circuit capacity (SCC) is established. Based on it, a SCC-based voltage stability index (VSI) is defined as the ratio of the SCC supplied by the combined generation-transmission system and the SCC required by load bus to maintain voltage stability. Then, for the calculation of SCC-based VSI, a two-step equivalent method of power system is presented to obtain the SCC supplied by the system side, in which the generator is modeled as a time-varying internal voltage behind constant internal impedance. Meanwhile, a modification method of load power is proposed to deal with the voltage-dependent characteristics and the restoration dynamics of system loads. As a result, the SCC required by loads can be precisely calculated. At last, the 5-bus system and the New England 39-bus system are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed voltage instability detection method.