VOLTAGE STABILITY ENHANCEMENT BY OPTIMAL SIZING AND SITING OF STATIC SYNCHRONOUS COMPENSATOR USING DRAGONFLY ALGORITHM

Ever- increasing demand of electric power makes transmission networks operate outside their voltage stability limits. To meet with the demand, the networks have to be improved, which may be difficult due to economic, environmental impact and implementation period. Therefore, Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices are employed to achieve proper utilization of existing transmission networks. This research work has presented the application of Dragonfly Algorithm (DA) by optimal sizing and siting of STATCOMs for voltage stability enhancement. The simulation was carried out using Newton Raphson Power Flow technique in MATLAB 2018a environment. The DA was implemented on 52-Bus Nigerian transmission network, where STATCOMs were optimally placed at buses 6 (Ikeja West), 18 (Alaoji), 22 (Makurdi), 23 (B/Kebbi), 25 (Oshogbo), 34 (Maiduguri), 43 (Sakete), 45 (Jalingo), 48 (Kano) and 52 (AES) with optimal sizes of 47.3 MVar each after18 iterations.The obtained VPEI was found to be 1.1126, which signifies enhancement in voltage stability of 11.26%.