The maximum flow algorithm applied to the placement and distributed steady-state control of UPFCs

The bulk power system is one of the largest man-made networks and its size makes control an extremely difficult task. This paper presents a method to control a power network using UPFCs set to levels determined by a maximum flow (max-flow) algorithm. The graph-theory-based max-flow is applied to the power system for UPFC placement and scheduling. A distributed version of max-flow is described to coordinate the actions of the UPFCs distributed in a power network. Two sample power systems were tested using max-flow for UPFC placement and settings. The resulting system characteristics are examined over all single-line contingencies and the appropriateness of the maximum flow algorithm for power flow control is discussed.