A Simple Strategic SVCs Placement Scheme for Enhanced Voltage Stability Margin

Due to the disparity between supplied and demanded reactive power, the bus voltages deviate from their nominal voltage levels, leading to voltage instability. An effective reactive power compensation can prevent the voltage instability issues in power systems, and ensures a reliable and resilient transmission system. Static Var Compensators (SVCs) are widely used as reactive power compensators to prevent voltage stability issues. Owing to their higher cost, SVCs are placed in the large power system networks after meticulous planning to reap maximum benefit with limited number of devices. In this work, a methodology is proposed to quantify the effectiveness of a potential SVC location using four voltage stability criteria, i.e., least electrical distance, higher line flow, maximum angular difference and higher modal participation. Candidate SVC locations are evaluated using these four criteria via means of an integrated Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) methodology. The critical locations obtained using this methodology form the potential locations for SVC placement. The effectiveness of SVCs in enhancing the static voltage stability margins is then assessed for IEEE 14-bus and Reduced NRPG 246-bus systems.