A Faster Approach for Identifying suitable Locations for TCSC Placement for Voltage Profile Enhancement and Loss Reduction

Injection of reactive power into power systems through FACTs devices has been identified as one of the ways through which the existing power network operation could be enhanced. However, identification of suitable locations, where the effect of these FACTs devices will be most beneficial to the network, has been a growing concern to electric power utilities in planning and operation of power systems. Consequently, a safe and reliable power system operation requires that all operating states, which could be used to enhance power system operation such as voltage profile enhancement and loss reduction, must be quickly detected and identified. This paper, therefore, introduces a Line Strength Index (LSI) for identifying suitable locations where reactive power supports such as Thyristor-controlled series capacitor (TCSC) could be located for voltage profile enhancement and transmission loss reduction within the system. Furthermore, the influence of TCSC placement on the voltage profile and transmission losses is investigated. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated on a simple 6-bus power network. The results obtained are compared with that obtained when TCSC is placed at a randomly selected location. This shows that the integrity of a stressed power network, in terms of security and reliability, could be easily enhanced through the application of TCSC whose placement is determined by LSI, a non-iterative-based approach.