Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Voltage profile has been a major concern for power system utilities. Lack of voltage profile control may cause voltage collapse and lead to complete power cut in the system. Several events of voltage collapse in the recent past in the country are some example. Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices are increasingly used to improve voltage profile and power flow control in many utilities. However, owing to the considerable cost of FACTS devices involved, it is important to find the optimal location and sizing of these devices in a power system to obtain maximum benefits of these devices. In the recent works, to find optimal location and sizing of STATCOM, PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and many other intelligent algorithms was used. In this research work new intelligent algorithm known as firefly OPF algorithm is used to find best location and size of STATCOM. The algorithm is implemented for finding optimal location and sizing of STATCOM for voltage profile improvement in a benchmark IEEE 30-bus system.
Keywords: FACTS, Firefly OPF Algorithm, Newton Raphson Method, Optimal Power Flow, STATCOM