Computationally Efficient Adjustment of FACTS Set Points in DC Optimal Power Flow with Shift Factor Structure

Enhanced utilization of the existing transmission network is a cheaper and paramount alternative to building new transmission lines. Flexible ac transmission system (FACTS) devices are advanced technologies that offer transfer capability improvements via power flow control. Although many FACTS devices exist in power systems, their set points are not frequently changed for power flow control purposes, which is mainly due to the computational complexity of incorporating FACTS flexibility within the market problem. This paper proposes a computationally efficient method for adjustment of variable impedance-based FACTS set points, which is also compatible with existing market solvers. Thus, the method can be employed by the existing solvers with minimal modification efforts. This paper models FACTS reactance control as injections to keep the initial shift factors unchanged. Next, the paper formulates a dc optimal power flow that co-optimizes FACTS set points alongside generation dispatch. The resulting problem, which is in a nonlinear program, is then reformulated to a mixed-integer linear program. Finally, an engineering insight is leveraged to further reduce the computational complexity to a linear program. Simulation studies on IEEE 118-bus and Polish 2383-bus test cases show that the method is extremely effective in finding quality solutions and being very fast.