Optimal Location of Thyristor-controlled Series Capacitor to Enhance Power Transfer Capability Using Firefly Algorithm

Abstract—The optimal power flow problem seeks to find an optimal profile of active and reactive power generations along with voltage magnitudes in such a manner as to minimize the total operating costs of a power system while satisfying network security constraints. This article presents a firefly algorithm to solve the optimal power flow problem incorporating a thyristor-controlled series capacitor. A thyristor-controlled series capacitor is considered to find the optimal location in transmission lines to enhance the power transfer capability of the transmission line. To assess the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, it was tested on a 5-bus test system, an IEEE 14-bus system, and a modified IEEE 30-bus system, and it was compared with the genetic algorithm and differential evolution with and without a thyristor-controlled series capacitor. It has also been observed that the proposed algorithm can be applied to larger systems and does not suffer with computational difficulties. The results show that the firefly algorithm produces better results than others and has fast computing time for solving the optimal power flow problem with a thyristor-controlled series capacitor.