A real-time calculation method for optimal reactive power compensator

A real-time calculation method is presented to determine the optimal reactive power compensator for power systems. The reactive power compensators are expressed as both the continuous control scheme and the discrete control scheme. The optimization problem is written in terms of the minimization of power line loss by minimizing the line currents. Three-phase current balancing is also considered in this problem. By an integerization method, suboptimal solutions are approached for utilizing the discrete-tap compensators. Theoretical derivations and computation procedures are formulated by including digital techniques for real-time data acquisition. Applications to radial-type systems are described and discussed. Examples of real-time simulations and experiments are discussed to show the performance of the method and to support the application capability