A Hybrid Method of EPSO and TS for FACTS Optimal Allocation in Power Systems

In this paper, a hybrid meta-heuristic method is proposed to determine the optimal allocation of FACTS devices in power systems. As power systems become deregulated and competitive, FACTS is introduced into them to improve the power system conditions. This paper examines the effectiveness of FACTS on the transmission capability. It is important to consider how to allocate the FACTS devices and determine the control variables for the maximizing transmission capability. The optimal allocation of FACTS may be expressed as a nonlinear mixed integer problem that has integer and continuous variables corresponding to the location and output, respectively. The proposed method makes use of a hybrid meta-heuristic method with two layers. Layer 1 determines the allocation with tabu search (TS) while layer 2 evaluates the output variables with evolutionary particle swarm optimization (EPSO). The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in a sample system.