Optimal Placement of Multi-Type FACTS Devices by Simulated Annealing Approach

In this paper, a simulated annealing (SA) approach is proposed to find the optimal placementof multi-type FACTS devices to minimize the total cost including the total generator fuel cost of allloading levels and the cost of FACTS devices. The problem is decomposed into the optimal placementof multi-type FACTS devices subproblem that is searched by the SA approach and the OPF withmulti-type FACTS devices subproblem that is also solved by the hybrid tabu search and simulatedannealing (TS/SA) approach and quadratic programming (QP). Four types of FACTS devices areused: thyristor-controlled series capacitor (TCSC), thyristor-controlled phase shifter (TCPS), unifiedpower flow controller (UPFC), and static var compensator (SVC). The solution includes multi-location, multi-type, and multi-size of FACTS devices. Test results on the 6 bus system with multi-typeFACTS devices indicate that the proposed SA approach can obtain better solutions than thesensitivity index approach. Moreover, SA approach converges to the optimal solution at a fasterrate than genetic algorithm (GA) and tabu search (TS).