Planning minimum reactive compensation to mitigate voltage instability

This paper proposes a new optimization based algorithm to plan the minimum amount of switched shunt and series capacitors to restore the voltage stability of a power system after severe contingencies. Through parameterization of severe contingencies, the continuation method is applied to find the critical point. Then, the backward/forward search algorithm with linear complexity is used to select candidate locations for switched shunt and series capacitors. Next, a mixed integer programming formulation is proposed for computing locations and amounts of switched shunt and series capacitors to withstand a planned set of contingencies. A linear programming formulation is utilized to further refine the compensation amounts. The approach is illustrated using the New England 39-bus system.