Economic viability of application of FACTS devices for reducing generating costs

the multifunctional capabilities of Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) devices paved new paths for controlling and enhancing the power transfer and usable capacity of transmission lines. The ability to enhance power transfers lead to their applications in a multi machine power system for the purpose of an overall reduction in power generation cost, among the others. The study presented in this paper deals with evaluation of economic viability of application of FACTS devices for generation cost reduction. It starts with optimal placement of four types of FACTS devices, namely Static Var compensator (SVC), Thyristor-Controlled Series Capacitor (TCSC), Thyristor-Controlled Voltage Regulator (TCVR), and Thyristor-Controlled Phase Shifting Transformer (TCPST) in a multi machine power system. The allocation methodology accounts for the cost of generated active and reactive powers, load growth, and cost of selected FACTS devices over a wide range of operating conditions. The allocation task is handled by the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimization procedures. The economic viability of the solution is assessed using Net Present Value (NPV) calculation. Finally, Tornado diagram is used to assess sensitivity of the solution to various parameters involved in the optimization procedure.