Enhancement of System Performance and Static

Security through an Optimal Placement of SVC

K.Shanmukha Sundar and H.M.Ravikumar
Electrical & Electronics Engineering Department, Jawaharlal Nehru National College of Engineering
Karnataka State, Shimoga, India
jaya_sundar_k@yahoo.co.in, hmrgama@India.com
AbstractThe paper focuses on enhancement of system static
security and to enhance the system performance under network
contingencies through an optimal placement and optimal setting
of static var compensator (SVC). The goal of the methodology
developed is to alleviate/eliminate overloads on the transmission
lines and to maintain the voltages at all load buses within their
specified limits through an optimal placement and optimal setting
of SVC under different network contingencies. The optimal
location of SVC is identified by a new index called Single
Contingency Voltage Sensitivity (SCVS) index. Finally the
optimal setting of SVC is obtained to enhance the power system
performance under network contingencies. This premise is
attested on 6-bus system to show the effectiveness of the method.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Power systems are commonly planned and operated based

on the N1 security criterion. An overriding factor in the
operation of a power system is the desire to maintain system
security. System security involves practices designed to keep
the system operating when components fail [1]. The
restructuring and deregulation [2] of the electric power industry
has involved paradigm shifts in the real-time control activities
of the power grids. The demands of the twenty first century
with increased growth and interconnection of power grids, will
stretch existing delivery system to their limits and create new
requirements for flow control, system security, system stability
etc. Increased demands on transmission, absence of long-term
planning, and the need to provide open access to generating
companies and customers, all together have created tendencies
toward less security and reduced quality of supply. Also in the
present day scenario private power producers are increasing
rapidly to meet the increase in demand due to heavily loaded
customers. In this above process, the voltages at load buses
may violate their limits and the existing transmission lines are
overloaded and lead to unstable system. So based on the above,
maintaining voltages at all load busses within the specified
limits and alleviating the emergency transmission line
overloads, through proper reactive power allocation is a critical
problem in power system operation. New transmission lines or
FACTS devices on the existing transmission system can
eliminate/alleviate the overloads on the transmission lines, but
FACTS devices are preferred in the modern power systems
based on its overall performance.
In deregulated scenario, power companies become more
and more cost conscious and they are driven to solutions where
the system is operated more flexibly through the FACTS

Controllers. From, literature survey [3]-[6], it is clear that the

appropriate location and sizing of the FACTS Controllers has
improved the system performance vastly. The literature review
[7]-[11], is focused on reactive power allocation using an
optimization technique like linear, mixed integer linear
nonlinear, and quadratic programming has been used to obtain
the optimal solution of the objective function, however
alleviating the line overloads using SVC under network
contingencies has not been discussed in great detail. The
authors [12] have illustrated an approach to enhance the static
security enhancement via optimal utilization of TCSC under
network contingencies. However the authors have not
investigated the security enhancement with respect to voltage
problems.
The loss of one of the power sources could suddenly
increase the load demand on the remaining part of the system,
causing severe voltage depression that could results in an
ultimate voltage collapse. The changes that are going to occur
in the network configuration during contingencies, like
generator outages or branch outages, the reactive power flow in
the system differs widely under different contingencies. It has
long been recognized that the steady-state transmittable power
can be increased and the voltage profile along line controlled
by appropriate reactive shunt compensation. The voltage
magnitude at all or some load buses may fall below the
specified lower limits during heavy load conditions and at light
loads, the voltage magnitude may exceed the specified upper
limits. Thus, shunt connected, fixed or thyristor switched
reactors are applied to maintain the voltage levels within the
specified limits.
The paper focuses on enhancement of system static security
and to enhance the system performance under network
contingencies through an optimal placement and optimal
setting of SVC. The optimal location of SVC is identified by a
new index called Single Contingency Voltage Sensitivity
(SCVS) index. The goal of the methodology developed is to
alleviate/eliminate overloads on the transmission lines and to
maintain the voltages at all load buses within their specified
limits through an optimal placement and optimal setting of
SVC under network contingencies. Once the location is
identified, the optimal setting of SVC is determined to achieve
the goal. With the methodology developed, the Transmission
System Operator (TSO) will have direct influence on the
control parameters of the controllable device: in an emergency
situation a different set of control parameters needs to be
activated in order for the device to help keep the system stable.

As soon as the emergency in the network is cleared, the

controllable device can switch back to the main task. In the
case study, a modified version of power system simulation
software: matpower 3.0 [13] is used for power flow studies for
different contingencies. For the intended research,
mathematical model of SVC has been incorporated in
matpower package. The optimal location and the optimal
setting of SVC are obtained through a programming code
written in MATLAB. This premise is attested on 6-bus system
to show the effectiveness of the method.
II.

SVC MODEL

An SVC is a shunt connected static var generator or

absorber whose output is adjusted to exchange capacitive or
inductive reactive current so as to maintain or control specific
parameters of the power system i.e. typically bus voltages. The
static var compensator is a parallel combination of capacitor
and inductor; the latter is under phase angle control called as
Thyristor Controlled Reactor (TCR). That is, the form of SVC
selected in this paper is fixed capacitor (FC) with TCR, shown
in Fig. 1. This combination provides a fast variable source of
reactive power.
The model of SVC in this paper interprets the FACTS as a
shunt element with varying susceptance B [14]. The active and
reactive power value of an SVC from the injected power
equations [14] is:

Pi = 0

(1)

Qi =Vi 2 Bt

(2)

where Pi and Qi are injected real and reactive power to a bus

respectively and Vi is the voltage at bus-i at which an SVC is
shunted.
The total susceptance with SVC shunted at bus-i is:

Bt = Bi + Bsvc

(3)

The net reactive power generated by SVC is

Qsvc = QC QL

(4)

In case, the bus voltage that falls below the specified lower
limits, the SVC will supply reactive power by working as a
capacitor.

On the other hand if the bus voltage exceeds the specified

upper limits, then the SVC will absorb reactive power by
working as an inductor. The rating of SVC at bus-i is obtained
by using (2).
III.

PROBLEM FORMULATION

The idea of the approach presented in this section is to

identify a node that is most sensitive to the largest number of
contingencies through the calculation of single contingency
voltage sensitivity (SCVS) index. The SCVS index is
determined only for the important contingencies, which are
actually causing problems for system security. The important
contingencies are short listed using the Voltage Performance
Index (PIV). The SCVS index at node-j is determined through
the matrices viz: participation matrix (PM), ratio matrix (R),
and the contingency probability array (P) (Appendix). The
SCVS is defined as the sum of the sensitivities at node-j, to all
the considered important N1 contingencies. So the SCVS for
node-j, is expressed as:

SCVS =

ncont

P ( PM )
i

ij

Rij

(5)

i =1

j = 1.....nlb
where
ncont
nlb

number of important contingencies;

number of load buses.

The SCVS values are calculated for all load buses of the
system using (5). The load buses are then ranked according to
their SCVS values. In general, the bus with larger value of
SCVS is considered as more sensitive and is ranked first. The
SVC should be placed according to the ranking made based on
SCVS. The SVC should be placed at a bus having most
positive SCVS index. Also additional criterions have also been
used while deciding the optimal placement of FACTS device
i.e., the SVC should not be placed at a bus, where, the injected
Mvar already exists. A bus that is selected for the optimal
placement of SVC is shunted at a bus along with the other
shunted elements, which will provide the most efficient control
of the voltage and as well as power flows and will enhance the
steady state security of the system.

IV.

CASE STUDY AND SIMULATION RESULTS

A. Specification of Test System

The effectiveness of the method is carried out on 6-bus
system [1]. The six-bus system has got eleven transmission
lines with a capacity of 230 kV. The 6-bus test system, which is
considered for the purpose of case study, is shown in Fig-2. In
the first step the candidate buses for allocation of SVC are to be
found assuming that they all have the same installation cost
coefficients. The overload limit of the transmission lines is due
to thermal considerations.
Figure 1.

SVC Model

TABLE II.

VOLTAGE MAGNITUDES WITH SVC AT BUS-6 FOR 3-6

BRANCH OUATGE

Voltage magnitude

Bus No.

Without SVC
( p.u)

With SVC
( p.u)

4
5
6
Losses (p.u)

0.9854
0.9574
0.8898
0.429261

0.9873
0.9707
0.95
0.328513

TABLE III.

VOLTAGE MAGNITUDES WITH SVC AT BUS-4 FOR 2-4

BRANCH OUATGE

Figure 2. Six-bus test system

The buses with largest value of SCVS index are considered

as the candidate buses for allocation of SVC at bus i for a
contingency j. The power flow solutions in each of the
contingencies are computed by matpower software package.
Optimal location and optimal setting of SVC were computed
using software code written in MATLAB. Simulation studies
using MATLAB programming code, on a 6-bus network are
presented to illustrate the methodology and to demonstrate the
benefits of the proposed method.
B. Simulation results
In this paper all possible contingencies that are actually
causing problems were considered. The participation matrix is
a binary matrix, which is formed using the information
obtained from the voltage performance index. Rows in the
participation matrix correspond to all load buses. For each load
bus, the SCVS indexes are calculated using (5) for all possible
contingencies. The outage probabilities of all transmission lines
and generators are assumed to be equal to 0.02.

Voltage magnitude

Bus No.

Without SVC
( p.u)

With SVC
( p.u)

4
5
6
Losses (p.u)

0.8924
0.9699
1.0012
0.37669

0.95
0.9795
1.0031
0.28577

From Table II and Table III, it is evident that the voltage

magnitudes at all load buses are within the specified limits
under branch outages. This is achieved by placing an SVC at
bus-6 with an optimal setting of 41.52 MVAr for 3-6-branch
outage and SVC at bus-4 with an optimal setting of 36.3105
MVAr for 2-4-branch outage. Further, it is also noticed that
the total system losses are reduced significantly with this
optimal location and setting. Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, shows the
voltage profile at all load buses with and without SVC for 3-6
and 2-4-branch outages respectively.

1) Branch outage
The SCVS indexes calculated for branch outages are listed
in Table I. In this illustrated example, bus-6 and bus-4 are
selected as the appropriate location to place the available
SVCs. However, the planner decides the number of SVCs
required based on budgetary constraint.

Figure 3.

Voltage profile at load buses for SVC at bus 6

While placing the SVC at buses, the type of reactive power

compensation required has been investigated, and it is found
that for both the placements, i.e. at bus-6 and bus-4, SVC will
work as a capacitor and supplies reactive power for 2-4 and 3-6
branch outages. The voltage magnitudes and system losses for
one SVC at a time at bus-6 and bus-4 are shown in Table II and
Table III respectively.
TABLE I.

SCVS VALUES AND RANKING OF 6-BUS SYSTEM

Load bus
Number
4
5
6

SCVS

Rank

0.0020
0
0.0023

2
--1

Figure 4. Voltage profile at load buses for SVC at bus-4

Further, the overloads on the transmission lines are

alleviated with the same optimal location and optimal setting of
SVC. The apparent power flow (APF) results are given in
Table IV and Table V. The overload limit of the transmission
lines is due to thermal considerations. The normalized power
flows for overloaded lines are given in last row of Table IV and
Table V.
From Table-IV and Table-V it is evident that for the outage
of branch 3-6, the overloads on the transmission line are
completely eliminated with SVC at bus 6 and the overloads on
the transmission line are alleviated for 2-4-branch outage with
SVC at bus 4. The power flow profile with SVCs at bus 6 for
3-6-branch outage and SVC at bus 4 for 2-4 branch outages
respectively are shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6

wosvc- without svc

Figure 6.

TABLE IV.

APF WIT H SVC AT BUS-6 FOR 3-6 BRANCH OUTAGE

Branches

Without SVC

With SVC
(At bus-6)

0.3633
0.5090
0.4179
0.2243
0.5998
0.2938
0.8401
0.4672
0.0501
0.2354
0.4179

0.3459
0.4950
0.3923
0.2262
0.5837
0.2549
0.6293
0.4376
0.0483
0.1931
No overloaded lines

APF WIT H SVC AT BUS-4 FOR 2-4 BRANCH OUTAGE

Branches
1-2(1)
1-4(2)
1-5(3)
2-3(4)
2-5(6)
2-6(7)
3-5(8)
3-6(9)
4-6(10)
5-6(11)
|| APF||

APF profile with SVC at bus 4 for 2-4-branch outage

2) Generator outage

Apparent power flow (p.u)

1-2(1)
1-4(2)
1-5(3)
2-3(4)
2-4(5)
2-5(6)
2-6(7)
3-5(8)
4-6(10)
5-6(11)
||APF||
TABLE V.

wsvc-with svc

Apparent power flow (p.u)

Without SVC

With SVC
(At bus-4)

0.1633
0.9249
0.3702
0.1545
0.3002
0.3408
0.3670
0.7737
0.1841
0.1233
1.2251

0.1465
0.7415
0.3450
0.1514
0.2778
0.3329
0.3365
0.7582
0.1052
0.1006
0.7415

Figure 5. APF profile with SVC at bus 6 for3-6 branch outage

The loss of generation will create emergency in the system.

In the illustrated case study, the loss of generation of generator
G3 at bus-3 has created emergency in the system, where as the
other generator outages has not created any emergencies in the
system. During the loss of generation of generator G3, the
voltage levels at load buses 5 and 6 violated their specified
lower limits. The single contingency voltage sensitivity
(SCVS) index for these two load buses 5 and 6 are 0.00091and
0.00141 respectively. Based on these SCVS, the load bus-6 is
ranked 1 and the load bus-5 is ranked as 2. As per ranking the
first available SVC is placed at bus-6. Table VI shows the
voltage profile at all load buses and system losses for generator
G3 outage. The optimal setting of SVC in this case is 18.936
MVAr. Fig. 7 shows the voltage profile at all load buses with
and without SVC at bus-6.
TABLE VI.

VOLTAGE MAGNITUDES WITH SVC AT BUS-6 FOR

GENERATOR G3-OUTAGE
Bus No.

4
5
6
Losses (p.u)

Figure 7.

Voltage magnitude
Without
SVC
( p.u)

With
SVC
( p.u)

0.9846
0.9426
0.9333
0.47565

0.9857
0.9500
0.9522
0.43685

Voltage profile at load buses for SVC at bus-6

Further, it is found that the normalized value of APF

without SVC is 2.8381 p.u and with optimal setting of SVC it
is 2.1843 p.u, which indicates that the line overloads are
alleviated moderately and the system losses are reduced. With
the further increase in the SVC rating at bus-6 from 18.936 to
41MVAr, the line overloads are well alleviated with
normalized value of APF equals to 1.8390 p.u, the system
losses are also reduced further and the voltage profile at all
load buses are well improved and are within the limits as
compared with the setting of 18.936MVAr as shown in Table
VII. However, this is not true for SVC at bus-5. However, this
is not true for SVC at bus-5.
The system losses for different branch and generator
outages without SVC and with optimal setting of SVC are
summarized in Table VIII.
The variation and overall
comparison of real and reactive power losses with and without
SVC for different branch and generator outages are represented
graphically in Fig. 8. In Fig. 8, b5 corresponds to 2-4 branch
outage with SVC at bus-4, b9 corresponds to 3-6-branch
outages with SVC atbus-6, G35 and G36 correspond to
generator-3 outage with SVC at bus-5 and bus-6 respectively.
TABLE VII.

VOLTAGE MAGNITUDES WITH SVC AT BUS-6 FOR

GENERATOR G3 OUATGE
Bus No.

Voltage magnitude

4
5
6
Losses
(p.u)

TABLE VIII.

Without
SVC
( p.u)

With SVC
( p.u)

0.9846
0.9426
0.9333

0.9870
0.9585
0.9741

0.47565

0.40275

Real power losses

Outages
2-4 branch
outage
(SVC at bus-4)
3-6 branch
outage
(SVC at bus-6)
Generator- G3
outage
(SVC at bus-5)
Generator- G3
outage
(SVC at bus-6)

wsvc- with SVC

Figure 8. Summary of System Losses

V.

CONCLUSION

In this paper a new methodology is demonstrated to

improve the system performance and thereby enhancing the
system static security. Simulation studies using MATLAB
programming code, on a 6-bus system are presented to
illustrate the methodology and to demonstrate the benefits of
the proposed method. In this paper optimal location of SVC
has been identified using an index called SCVS. From the
results, it is clear that the optimal location of SVC for branch
and generator outages is found at bus 6. With this location and
optimal setting of SVC the system performance has improved
vastly and system static security has been enhanced. The
results presented in this paper authenticate the effectiveness of
the methodology demonstrated.
APPENDIX

SUMMARY OF SYSTEM LOSSES

Losses

wosvc-without SVC,

Reactive power losses

Without
SVC (MW)

With SVC
(MW)

Without
SVC
(MVAr)

With
SVC
(MVAr)

10.4486

7.8550

36.191

27.4767

14.4566

11.0876

40.4185

30.9237

14.9999

12.6911

45.1384

38.2547

14.9999

12.8559

45.1384

38.1678

The participation matrix (PM) is a (m x n) binary matrix,

whose entries are 1 or 0 depending upon whether or not the
corresponding load bus is violated their specified limits. Where
m is the total number of considered contingencies and n is the
total number of load buses.
The ratio matrix Rij is a (m x n) matrix of normalized
voltages at all load buses.

Rij =

V jc
V jn

( A1)

where
Vjc Voltage at bus j under contingency
Vjn Voltage at bus j under normal condition
The contingency probability array P is (m x 1) an array of
outage probabilities:

P( m1) = [ p ]
i
where i = 1,2,..m,
for contingency i

(A2)

pj is the probability of occurrence

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