A new method for SVC placement considering FSS limit and SVC investment cost

Although the primary purpose of a static VAr compensator (SVC) is voltage regulation of the bus by injecting reactive power into the system, it can also improve stability and damping of a power system if placed in the right location. In a power system, transient stability is the ability of the system to maintain stability and oscillation damping after a severe disturbance. Actually, the system is stable if the angles of all generators remain stable after a perturbation. This paper proposes a new method to find the best location of SVC in a power system, considering improvement of the first swing stability (FSS) limit and SVC investment cost reduction, simultaneously. For this purpose two indexes are defined, the stability index and cost index. Stability index and cost index are measures to assess the stability of the system and SVC investment cost, respectively. The bus with the highest values of stability index and cost index is the best location of SVC. The effectiveness of the proposed method to find the appropriate location for SVC is tested on the 9-bus IEEE test system and a 29-bus test system. After choosing the best location, SVC is placed there and the optimal value for the maximum capacitive susceptance of SVC is found using particle swarm optimization (PSO) for an agreement between the improvement of FSS limit and reduction of SVC investment cost.