Weak bus-oriented optimal multi-objective VAr planning

This paper presents a weak bus-oriented criterion to determine the candidate buses for installing new VAr sources in the VAr planning problem. First, an efficient method, using a voltage collapse proximity indicator, is described for identifying weak buses. Then appropriate VAr planning in those weak buses can enhance the system security margin, in particular, to prevent voltage collapse. Next, the goal attainment (GA) method based on the simulated annealing (SA) approach is applied to solving general multi-objective VAr planning problems by assuming that the decisionmaker (DM) has goals for each of the objective functions. The presented method can both obtain a better final solution and reduce the solution space. Results of application of the proposed method to the AEP-14 bus system as well as to a large, actual-size system are also presented.