Probabilistic approach to series compensation design

Series capacitive compensation in electrical power systems is generally recognized as a very economical and powerful means for increasing the transmission capability of long‐distance transmission lines, resulting in relevant technical advantages in power system behavior: increased steady‐state and transient stability margins, reduced voltage drop in receiving systems during occurrence of severe contingencies and reduction of transmission losses. In this paper, a general method for choosing the series compensation degree is proposed, focusing the attention on the transient stability aspect. The approach, based upon a probabilistic framework, allows to properly select – at the design stage – the optimal degree of series compensation in order to contain the instability risk at an acceptable value. The transient stability problem is formulated by using the transient energy function method. In order to show the feasibility of the proposed approach, a numerical application to the Cigre test network is performed in the final part of the paper.