A Deterministic Approach to Locating Series Flow-Controllers Within Transmission Systems to Alleviate Congestion

Abstract

This paper proposes a new technique to intelligently split busbars within a meshed power system, to facilitate the insertion of series active power flow-controllers into the high voltage transmission systems. Such flow-controllers have historically been placed at system and national boundaries to modulate cross-border flows for regulatory, commercial and security purposes. The present work proposes a new concept for power system control, and embeds series flow-controllers within meshed transmission networks to gauge the extent to which their dispatchable flows can be used to alleviate thermal congestion. To articulate the value that such flexibility might provide, a new simplified unit commitment and dispatch formulation is presented, which integrally uses series flow-controllers to manage congestion and thus reduce operating costs. While both the siting and operation methodologies are shown to be practical, the achieved cost savings are modest at best, even on systems which are weakened to have significant levels of thermal congestion.