Power Loss Reduction and Voltage Profile Improvement Using Optimal Placement of FACTS Devices

Abstract

The crucial role of an electric power system is to generate sufficient electricity to meet customer demands with an acceptable level of reliability in an economic manner. In recent years, Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices have been widely used to increase power system operation flexibility and controllability to meet this need. This paper presents an application of Differential Evolution (DE) to optimise the allocation of a Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitor (TCSC), a Static Var Compensator (SVC), and Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC), as example FACTS devices. The objective of the research was to reduce power losses and improve the voltage profile in an IEEE 30-bus test system. The system performance was assessed with and without each FACTS device under different scenarios of load increase at up to 150% of the base case. The results obtained are encouraging in terms of reassessing electrical restructuring.