The Phenomenal Alleviation of Transmission Congestion by Optimally Placed Multiple Distributed Generators Using PSO

Abstract

In the current electricity paradigm, the rapid elevation of demands in industrial sector and the process of restructuring are the main causes for the overuse of transmission systems. Hence, the evolution of novel technology is the ultimate need to avoid the damages in the available transmission systems. An appreciable volume of renewable energy sources is used to produce electric power, after the implementation of deregulation in power system. Even though, they are intended to improve the reliability of power system, the unpredictable outages of generators or transmission lines, an impulsive increase in demand and the sudden failures of vital equipment cause transmission congestion in one or some transmission lines. Generation rescheduling and load shedding can be used to alleviate congestion, but some cases require quite few improved methods. With the extensive application of Distributed Generation (DG), congestion management is also performed by the optimal placement of DGs. Therefore, this research employs a Line Flow Sensitivity Factor (LFSF) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for the determination of optimal location and size of multiple DG units, respectively. This proposed problem is formulated to minimize the total system losses and real power flow performance index. This approach is experimented in modified IEEE-30 bus test system. The results of N-1 contingency analysis with DG units prove the competence of this proposed approach, since the total numbers of congested lines get reduced from 15 to 2. Hence, the results show that the proposed approach is robust and simple in alleviating transmission congestion by the optimal placement and sizing of multiple DG units.