Locating series FACTS devices using line outage sensitivity factors and particle swarm optimization for congestion management

This paper proposes a particle swarm optimization based algorithm for locating series FACTS devices in deregulated electricity markets in order to reduce and manage congestion. Line outage sensitivity factors are used to reduce the solution space and to pinpoint the lines which are more suitable for FACTS device placement. Total congestion cost and total generation cost are the two objective functions that are employed in the optimization process. In order to verify and validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, it was applied to IEEE 14-bus and IEEE 57-bus test systems. The results obtained by the proposed method were compared with those of congestion rent contribution method.