Comparison of Enhanced-PSO and Classical Optimization Methods: A Case Study for STATCOM Placement

This paper validates the effectiveness of an enhanced particle swarm optimizer (Enhanced-PSO) method in solving the problem of optimal allocation of FACTS devices in a power system. The performance of the Enhanced-PSO method is compared with classical optimization approaches using a simple but realistic case study of optimal allocation of STATCOM devices, considering steady state and economic criteria. This paper also discusses the concepts and details about the optimization process that tend to be overlooked in the literature since the selection of an optimization algorithm highly depends on them.