This paper describes the solution to a voltage study problem which determines the amount, location, and type of high voltage capacitors to be placed in the bulk transmission system to provide voltage support during severe system contingencies. A new solution method is compared with a more conventional approach to reactive power planning by applying the new method to a scaled down version of a recently completed study conducted by the New York Power Pool. A new optimization approach is introduced to solve the contingency constrained Optimal Power Flow problem, which is to minimize an objective function such as capacitor additions, while satisfying all steady-state power flow and voltage constraints for both the pre-and all post-contingency states. The results of a conventional study using a power flow program and an Optimal Power Flow program are compared with those of the new software tool presented here. The comparison shows that the optimization approach produces similar var allocations with considerably less effort than the conventional approach, with all of the added benefits of an Optimal Power Flow solution.

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