Optimal placement of edge-of-grid low-voltage SVCs in real-world distribution circuits

This paper proposes a method to determine optimal locations to deploy edge-of-grid low-voltage static var compensator (SVC) devices in large real-world distribution circuits. The SVC device operation, characteristics, and modeling are also discussed. The optimization problem formulation developed in this work has the objective of mitigating undervoltage violations in the circuit using the minimum number of SVCs while improving the traditional voltage regulation device operations and circuit losses. Undervoltage area criterion is used to identify effective candidate locations and the binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) algorithm with quasi-static time series (QSTS) simulations are used to determine the optimal SVC locations. The results show that the proposed method is effective in identifying the optimal SVC locations in large distribution circuits.