An important issue in today's power system is the need to analyse and determine the adequacy of transmission capacity. There is a need for approaches to increase transmission system capacity without construction of new transmission facilities, all while assuring secure operation of the grid. New technologies can enhance efficiency and reliability, increase capacity utilization, enable more rapid response to contingencies, and increase flexibility in controlling power flows on transmission lines. Distributed Series Reactor (DSR) control is a new smart grid technology that can be applied to control flows in the transmission system. DSRs can be used to balance phase flows in a single line as well as to control the distribution of flow in parallel flow paths.

This dissertation investigates the Design of Distributed Series Reactors (DSRs) on transmission lines and provide guidelines and considerations for their implementation in bulk power system transmission networks to control power flow to: increase the exisiting transmission capacity utilization, alleviate overloads due to load growth and contingencies, and mitigate the effects of unbalanced voltages, unbalanced transmission line impedances and unbalanced loads by balancing flows in the phases of an unbalanced line.

This dissertation provides several DSR System Design aspects; for a single line by performing an experiment for EHV and high voltage three parallel transmission lines, and for lines within the boundaries of a power system by deployment of DSRs over the IEEE 39 bus system that is modified and modelled as a 3-phase unbalanced transmission model with 345 kV lines that accounts for tower geometry and as a balanced, 3-phase model that is derived from the unbalanced, 3-phase model, and finally for lines within a control area and a set of tie lines among control areas by deployment of DSRs over a real system control area and the tie lines connecting this area to other power pool areas.

For all experiments and simulations in this dissertation lines are modelled as 3-phase lines. The DSR system design for Unbalanced vs. Balanced 3-phase systems (Unbalanced immittance, Unbalanced load) are examined. Also the Distributed vs. Lumped models for 3-phase systems are tested. Comparison between DSR system design and transposition for voltage balancing was performed. The effect of bundling the conductors for DSR system design was investiagted.

In this dissertation an economic evaluation of DSR System Design for parallel lines and for the IEEE 39 bus three-phase unbalanced line model for N-1 criterion contingency with load growth is performed. The economic evaluation performed for the DSR system design of a power system versus new transmission line construction showed that DSRs can be cost effective in managing load increases from year to a year, and thus avoid larger investments in new line construction until load expectations are proven to be true. Thus, a major value of DSRs is handling load growth in the short term, delaying larger investments.

Although many aspects of DSR control implementation have yet to be explored, this work has demonstrated the fundamental concept is sound and the economics are compelling.