This paper deals with direct voltage stability analysis using a power system energy function. The structure preserved energy function is proposed as an energy function for voltage stability analysis. With the use of the proposed energy function voltage collapse conditions are derived, which yields the exactly same results with the Jacobian matrix approach. The voltage collapse phenomenon is analyzed by several methods, which shows that all of the methods produce the same voltage condition. This study also investigates the voltage collapse dynamics by using the proposed energy function. As a result, it has been found that the voltage collapse can be classified into two categories: static and dynamic instablilties which have quite different behaviors. In addition a new method is presented to calculate the power capacity limit of transmission lines with respect to voltage stability. The proposed method is tested for a 2-bus sample system, which shows the characteristics of voltage collapse phenomenon via the energy function.