Abstract

Electric energy demand in power systems tends to grow up over time, in addition to the difficulties to cover the new power demand by the existing generating units, these lead to a rise in power system losses and a drop in voltage levels that do not guarantee a correct system operation. The main objective of this work is to propose an optimal location and size of reactive power compensation units to get adequate voltages of a part of the West Electric power System of Venezuela at a 115kV voltage level, while minimizing the total system active powerlosses. The implemented methodology consists in de-veloping an algorithm based on optimal power flow (OPF) simulations for a total of 744 load variation scenarios. For each load scenario, all possible combinations in location and size of the compensator units are evaluated. The obtained solution yields the minimum amount of compensation units and their location, as well as the necessary reactive power in-jections to ensure adequate voltage profiles for all the load variation scenarios. Also, using probabilistic analyzes, and considering the compensation units as switchable capacitor banks, the range of reactive power injections of each unit is determined, taking into account contingencies to assure the proper operation of the system under different operating conditions. The present work has been developed with de collaboration of CORPOELEC.