Optimal placement of FACTS to mitigate congestions and inter-area oscillations

The large amounts of power transfers consequent to the liberalization of energy markets has raised, among others, two issues: (i) transmission line congestions and (ii) low-damped inter-area oscillations. The method proposed in this paper simultaneously solves both problems by installing FACTS devices like TCSCs and SVCs in key points of the power system. In particular, TCSCs can eliminate the congestions by modifying the steady-state parameters of the transmission lines while SVCs and also TCSCs can assure a good damping of the inter-area modes through additional modulated signals generated by well designed Power Oscillation Dampers (PODs). As the problem is mathematically quite complex and robustness is highly required, Genetic Algorithm (GA) techniques are employed. To prove the efficiency of the method, simulations were performed on suitable test systems.