Optimal placement of STATCOM using a reduced computational burden by minimum number of monitoring units based on area of vulnerability

Abstract Various Flexible Alternating Current Transmission System (FACTS) devices are used to improve the power quality and reliability of power system. In addition to the technical constraints, the installation and maintenance costs limit the exploitation of such devices. To maximize the efficiency of FACTS, the least possible number of devices must be placed optimally in the network. In this vein, many types of research have been conducted to offer optimal placement solutions. Although these methods lead to optimal placement, they usually suffer from a huge amount of computational burden. Therefore, here, an intelligent optimal placement approach is presented, focusing on reducing computational volume. For this aim in the suggested method, the monitoring buses are limited, while monitoring other buses is carried out using an estimation approach. To avoid increasing calculations for this selection, applying the worst fault condition instead of all fault types, the least number of monitoring buses are selected. Moreover, high‐risk zones are indicated for each monitoring bus so that by applying different fault conditions in only these areas, the study is conducted, which results in an additional decrement in computational burden. Finally, the optimal placement problem is solved by employing the genetic algorithm.