As one of the important devices of the flexible AC transmission system (FACTS), the static var compensator (SVC) helps to improve the stable operation of the power system. By analyzing the generator rotor equation, it can be obtained that the conventional constant voltage control of SVC can not play the role of restraining the oscillation of the damping system. After the additional damping control is adopted, the dynamic stability of the system is obviously improved. This paper designs a SVCbased power oscillation damping (POD) controller, which uses the PSO optimization algorithm to adaptively optimize the controller parameters, and selects the appropriate damping control input signal to compensate the control signal. This paper uses simulink simulation software to establish a HeffronPhilips system model including SVC. Based on this model, the performance of the proposed method is studied in detail, verified by timedomain simulation method, and compared with the traditional power system stabilizer (PSS) controller to show the superiority of the designed controller.