Dynamic VAR planning for rotor-angle and short-term voltage stability enhancement

In the short-term timescale, separation between load-driven and generator-driven stability problems is rarely well-defined. Allocation of VSC-based VAR compensation, such as STATCOM, has the ability to boost system voltages in the fault-on condition, thus reducing generator power swing, in addition to circumventing delayed voltage recovery upon fault clearing, thereby reducing the risk of induction motor stalling. This paper proposes a multi-objective, hybrid static/dynamic VAR planning strategy incorporating distinct rotor angle and voltage stability indices found through time-domain simulations of full-order system models. The proposed method utilizes parallel high performance computing (HPC) capabilities combined with a genetic algorithm (GA) and is applied on the New England 39-bus system with assumed high penetration of induction machines. The study demonstrates that compared to voltage stability enhancement, improvement of rotor-angle stability through shunt dynamic VAR requires substantial additional capacity, the cost of which can be reduced using hybrid static/dynamic installations.