Comparison of PSO and RCGA for Optimal Location of STATCOM for Improvement of Transient Stability of Power Systems

In electrical power systems, reactive power compensation plays an important role in transient stability. Shunt flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices are being used in controlling the reactive power flow to the power network and, hence, the system voltage fluctuations and stability. Static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is one of the shunt connected FACTS devices. The primary purpose of STATCOM is to support bus voltage by injecting (or absorbing) reactive power, but it is also capable of improving the power system stability. In this paper, an interconnected two-area test system with actual transmission line model is used to show the effectiveness of Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) and Real Coded Genetic Algorithms (RCGA) algorithms for determining the optimal location for power system stability improvement.