Optimising Reactive Compensation in Power System

This research presents a comprehensive method of optimizing the reactive compensation used in power systems to obtain acceptable voltage profiles during periods of abnormal system loads and foreseeable contingencies. The system equations which are non-linear are first approximated to a linear form and then Linear Programming Technique is applied to obtain an optimal solution. An iterative procedure is then used to obtain results of acceptable accuracy. The main features of this research are not only that both inductive and capacitive compensation is optimized but also the bus bars where compensation is applied can be selected to suit the users operating constraints in the case of Independent Power Plant (IPP). Linear Programming Model was used for the determination of the minimum reactive power, required at designated buses during reactive compensation. Complete load flow analysis was done using Power System Analysis Tool Box (PSAT) a matlab base computer software which establishes both normal and contingency bus voltage profiles.