PSO based location and parameter setting of advance SVC controller with comparison to GA in mitigating small signal oscillations

This paper aims to select the optimal location and setting parameters of Static VAR Compensator (SVC) controller using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) to mitigate small signal oscillations in a multimachine power system. Though Power System Stabilizers (PSSs) are prime choice in this issue, its performance gets affected by changes in network configurations, load variations etc. Hence installation of FACTS device, SVC has been suggested here in order to achieve appreciable damping of oscillations. However, performance of any FACTS devices highly depends upon its parameters and suitable location in the power network. In this paper PSO as well as GA based techniques are used to investigate this problem. An attempt has also been made to compare the performance of the PSO based SVC controller with its GA based design. The validity of the proposed techniques is simulated in a multimachine system following two common disturbances. It has been revealed that the PSO based SVC controller is more effective than GA based controller even during critical loading condition.