Abstract

In today's competitive power markets, under the pressure of fast increasing demands and interregional trades, how to make the better use of the present transmission system, while still satisfying required reliability standards is gaining more and more attention. In this context, FACTS devices offer great opportunities in modern power system because of their great flexibility, controllability and overall performance, allowing better and safer operation of the grid. This paper gives a brief introduction of various kinds of FACTS devices and their controllers, some key research areas and various applications. We also present a survey on both the technical benefits that FACTS devices can bring to the system and the valuation of their economic benefits. We conclude that there is a large literature body on technical issues associated with FACTS, but limited work on valuing those benefits, offering great research opportunities.