Optimal placement of resistive/inductive SFCLs considering short-circuit levels using complex artificial bee colony algorithm

In mature electric power systems, growth in generation/demand, integration of renewable energy, and system expansion may elevate short-circuit levels beyond the rating of existing components. Thanks to technological advancements in materials, superconducting fault current limiters (SFCLs) can effectively alleviate excessive fault currents without affecting normal operation of power systems as they are invisible in non-faulted conditions. However, due to their rather high prices, SFCL optimal placement (SOP) comes to attention. The effectiveness of SOP depends on optimally siting of SFCL resistive/ inductive types, which vary in transmission and distribution networks due to different X/R ratios. In this study, an SOP is proposed to determine optimal locations and types of SFCLs taking into account short-circuit level of buses. In addition, a complex-valued artificial bee colony (CABC) algorithm is introduced to efficiently solve complex-valued optimisation problems such as power system applications, including SOP. The proposed SOP with CABC is examined on transmission and distribution test cases to evaluate its effectiveness. It is found that by employing the proposed complex decision vector, the CABC algorithm exhibits an enhanced exploration capability and convergence rate due to halving decision vector length and considering mutual effects of real and imaginary parts of decision variables.