Control of STATCOM by using optimal reactive power flow solutions

This paper presents an application of optimal reactive power flow solutions to command the reactive power injection of STATCOM. Typically, a reactive power compensator such as STATCOM can be controlled by various means. The optimal power flow solution is very useful. It is an optimizer in which a particular objective is minimized while meeting all system constraints. In this paper, solutions of optimal reactive power flows are used to set as the reference to the STATCOM's controller. To demonstrate this control strategy, 24-hour optimal power flow solutions of a simple three-bus test system was employed for test. The result showed that reactive power compensation by using the optimal reactive power flow solution can lead to the minimum power loss operation of the entire power system and the system voltage profile is flat and smooth.