Optimal Placement of Unified Power Flow Controller Using Particle Swarm Optimization Technique

The load growth in recent times due to advancements in technology and population increase has led to shortage of reactive power in the power system resulting in key issues such as voltage instability, large line losses, power outages among others. In this work, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique was used for optimal placement of Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) for power loss minimization using the IEEE 6-bus system as a test network. The load flow analysis was performed using Gauss-Seidel iterative method with and without inclusion of PSO-based UPFC. The PSO algorithm was used to find the optimum point for UPFC location and determined using the line with the least active power loss among other lines randomly selected by the PSO algorithm, with p.u defined as the voltage statutory limit. The simulation results revealed that the optimum point obtained was line 4-5, and the voltage profile were within the statutory limit with and without optimally placed UPFC. The total active power loss reduced from 495.5 to 273.9 MW, giving a reduction of 44.72 with optimally placed UPFC. The total reactive power loss equally reduced from 1439 to 936.2 MVAr, producing a reduction of 34.94 with optimally placed UPFC. These results obtained showed that PSO-based UPFC placement is suitable for power loss minimization and enhancement of the system voltage profile.