Determination of optimal settlement points of FACTS devices in power systems

Due to the increasing need for energy and the difficulties of building a new transmission line, existing transmission lines must be operated with high efficiency and reliability. Instead of establishing new transmission lines or production facilities, the performance of the power system is enhanced by using Flexible Alternating Current Transmission System (FACTS) devices with lower investments. Thus, more efficient use of existing transmission lines is ensured. FACTS controllers provide technical solutions to meet operational challenges. These solutions are continuous control of power, reliable loading and full utilization of transmission lines within thermal limits, minimization of system losses by minimizing overloaded transmission lines, and increased system stability. Because of the high cost of the FACTS controllers it is not possible to add them to each bus. For this reason, a limited number of FACTS controllers should be placed in the most appropriate position in the power systems. In this thesis, optimal placement of Static Var Compensator (SVC) and Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) devices in IEEE-30 bus power system has been realized by using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) methods. The level of active power losses was investigated by the optimal placement of the SVC controller with PSO, GA and ICA methods. Optimal location for SVC in PSO and GA method is determined as 26 and 30 buses, and ICA method is 20 and 24 buses. It has been determined that ICA optimization technique is the most successful method for reducing losses. Optimal placement of UPFC with PSO, GA and ICA methods the level of losses and the mean voltage level of the buses were investigated based on the number of UPFC used. When UPFC is added to the points determined by ICA method, the losses are reduced to the minimum and maximum voltage recovery is provided. The results show that the most successful method of determining the optimal placement of SVC and UPFC controllers is the ICA optimization method. The MATLAB program was used to model the power system and FACTS devices.