ATC enhancement by incorporating FACTS devices for deregulating scenario in present power market

The cost based monopolistic power market rules are new fangled by the word deregulation. Trepidations in its conceptualisation and integrated operation in the impending scenario are transmission pricing, congestion management and Available Transfer Capability (ATC). Of this intriguing technical challenge, ATC is the one that needs to be interrogated and dogged to make open access a feasible obsession for private entity participation which is deregulation’s intention.

This research work aims at calculating ATC using non iterative, simple, Power Transfer Distribution Factors (PTDF) based methodology, enhancing them using Flexible AC Transmission system (FACTS) devices like Static compensator (STATCOM) and Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC). A proven alternative to overcome extravagance by erecting new transmission facility is incorporation of FACTS devices in the existing structure that indulge in reactive power compensation. These FACTS devices are modelled using the power flow equations and is placed optimally based on the slope of sensitivity factors.

The optimal settings of FACTS devices is obtained by a soft computing technique labelled as Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) to enhance the ATC for the assumed bilateral and multilateral power contracts. The voltage and angle of shunt and series FACTS devices are randomly generated as the population of PSO on sample 6 bus and standard IEEE 30 bus systems.