Coordinated power flow control by multiple FACTS devices

This work describes a development of a control system and control strategies capable of governing multiple flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices. The main purposes of the presented coordinated control system are to remove overloads and to achieve specified power flows in transmission lines of a power system in the normal and N-1 steady-state operational modes. Proposed control strategies are based on heuristic rules; therefore they do not require intensive computations. A prototype of a control system has been designed as a real time tool constantly monitoring power flows and generating appropriate control signals to each FACTS device in order to maintain acceptable power flow levels. It has been interfaced with load flow software to test its effectiveness through non-linear simulations using the 380/220 kV Swiss power system as the study case. The results obtained are presented.