Optimal location and controller design of STATCOM for power system stability improvement using PSO

The optimal location of a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) and its coordinated design with power system stabilizers (PSSs) for power system stability improvement are presented in this paper. First, the location of STATCOM to improve transient stability is formulated as an optimization problem and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is employed to search for its optimal location. Then, coordinated design problem of STATCOM-based controller with multiple PSS is formulated as an optimization problem and optimal controller parameters are obtained using PSO. A two-area test system is used to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach for determining the optimal location and controller parameters for power system stability improvement. The nonlinear simulation results show that optimally located STATCOM improves the transient stability and coordinated design of STATCOM-based controller and PSSs improve greatly the system damping. Finally, the coordinated design problem is extended to a four-machine two-area system and the results show that the inter-area and local modes of oscillations are well damped with the proposed PSO-optimized controllers.