Summary
This paper seeks to address the impact of optimal FACTS devices planning on the obtained profit of Transmission Company (TRANSCO) and large consumers. An economic investigation is done to verify how the investment cost of FACTS devices can be compensated using the obtained benefits of TRANSCO and large consumers. It is shown that the gained benefit by the consumers might be considered as an effective policy for the participation of the demand side in the FACTS devices' investment costs. Additionally, in this paper, a new hybrid approach, consisting of both mathematical and heuristic methods for solving the problem, is presented. The mentioned algorithm is a combination of the hunting search (HuS) algorithm as a heuristic algorithm and non‐linear programming (NLP) as a mathematical approach. Also, the stochastic natures of renewable energy sources and load variations have been considered. For modeling the stochastic parameters, two points estimation method has been employed. Also, the spatial correlation among uncertain parameters has been considered. Finally, the proposed approach has been tested on a modified IEEE 57‐bus and IEEE 118‐bus power systems to confirm its efficiency and capability. The results indicate that by this methodology and procedure for the planning of FACTS, there is a reduction of 4.6474 × 105$ in payment of large consumers in 57‐bus system and 3.8089 × 108$ in 118‐bus system. Also, the respected values of power loss reduction cost of 57‐bus and 118‐bus test systems are 2.6246 × 105$ and 2.8250 × 107$.