A modified simulated annealing approach to congestion alleviation in a power system using FACTS devices

This paper investigates a novel optimization-based methodology for placement of Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices in order to relieve congestion in the transmission lines. The optimizations are carried out on the basis of location, size and type of specified number of FACTS devices. Thyristor Controlled Series Compensator (TCSC) and Static Var Compensator (SVC) are two mainly emerging FACTS devices and they are used in this paper to reduce the congestion. A modified Simulated Annealing (SA) based optimization method with a new perturbation mechanism is used to find the optimal solution. This mechanism is capable of considering a specified number of devices for allocation, based on cost limitations. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm, IEEE 14-bus renumbered test system has been considered and the results are tabulated.