CMPE TECE 3891

Chapter 4: Load Flow Analysis

1
 Introduction

▪ Introduction to load flow

▪ Power flow equations

▪ Data for load flow

▪ Gauss-seidal method

▪ Newton-Raphson Method

2
 Introduction

▪ Power (Load) flow study is the analysis of a power system in its normal or

steady-state of operation.

▪ Load flow studies determine:

▪ Voltages

▪ Currents

▪ Active power

▪ Reactive power

3
 Introduction

Reasons for carrying out load flow studies:

▪ The power flow problem was originally motivated within planning environments

where engineers considered different network configurations necessary to

serve an expected future load.

▪ Later, it became an operational problem as operators and operating engineers

were required to monitor the real-time status of the network in terms of

voltage magnitudes and circuit flows.

▪ A power flow solution procedure is a numerical method that is employed to

solve the power flow problem.

4
 Introduction

Reasons for carrying out load flow studies:

▪ The power flow solution contains the voltages and angles at all buses, and from

this information, we may compute the active and reactive power and load levels

at all buses and the active and reactive power flows across all circuits.

5
 Power Flow Equations

Power flow equations:

▪ The analysis is restricted to a balanced three-phase power system, so that the

analysis can be carried out on a single phase basis.

▪ The per unit quantities are used for all quantities to simplify the analysis.

▪ The power system is a large interconnected system, where various buses are

connected by transmission lines.

▪ At any bus, complex power is injected into the bus by the generators and

complex power is drawn from the bus by the loads.

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 Power flow equations

▪ At any bus, either one of them or both (generator or load) may not be present.

▪ The power is transported from one bus to other via the transmission lines.

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 Power flow equations

▪ Consider the power flow at bus I shown in the figure below.

▪ At any bus i , the complex power Si (injected), shown in the figure , is defined as:

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 Power flow equations

▪ Si = net complex power injected into bus i, SGi = complex power injected by the

generator at bus i, and SDi = complex power drawn by the load at bus i.

▪ According to conservation of complex power, at any bus i, the complex power

injected into the bus must be equal to the sum of complex power that flows out

of the bus via the transmission lines. Hence,

▪ where Sij is the sum over all lines connected to the bus and n is the number of

buses in the system (excluding the ground).

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 Power flow equations

▪ The bus current injected at the bus-i is defined as:

▪ In the bus frame of reference

Where

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 Power flow equations

▪ We can re-write the current equation as:

▪ The complex power Si is given by:

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 Power flow equations

▪ Now let:

▪ We know that the admittance is given by:

▪ Substituting these values into the apparent power equation we get:

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 Power flow equations

▪ Separating real and imaginary parts we obtain:

▪ In this case, the apparent power is presented in rectangular form.

▪ Alternatively, Pi and Qi can be obtained by representing Yij also in polar form as:

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 Power flow equations

▪ We can re-write the apparent power equation in polar form as:

▪ Separating the real and imaginary parts to get the active and reactive power

components we get:

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 Power flow equations

▪ Similarly, Qi is imaginary part of the apparent power equation and is given by:

▪ The derived equations are the power flow or load flow equations in two

alternative forms.

▪ The derived power flow equations correspond to the n-bus system, where each

bus-i is characterized by four variables,

▪ Thus a total of 4n variables are involved in these equations.

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 Power flow equations

▪ Now, The load flow equations can be solved for any 2n unknowns, if the other

2n variables are specified.

▪ The known and unknown variables are specified based on the classification of

the buses.

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 Data for power flow

Irrespective of the method used for the load flow solution, the data required is

common for any load flow.

The various data required are:

Power system data: the system data includes the number of buses-n, number of

PV buses, number of loads, number of transmission lines, number of transformers,

number of shunt elements, the slack bus number, voltage magnitude of slack bus

(angle is generally taken as 0o), tolerance limit, base MVA, and maximum

permissible number of iterations.

17
 Data for power flow

Generator bus data: For every PV bus i, the data required includes the bus number,

active power generation PGi, the specified voltage magnitude 𝑉𝑖, 𝑠𝑝 , minimum

reactive power limit Qi,min, and maximum reactive power limit Qi,max.

Load data: For all loads the data required includes the bus number, active power

demand PDi, and the reactive power demand Qdi.

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 Data for power flow

Transmission line data: For every transmission line connected between buses i and
k the data includes the starting bus number i, ending bus number k, resistance of
the line, reactance of the line and the half line charging admittance.

Transformer data: For every transformer connected between buses i and k the
data to be given includes: the starting bus number i, ending bus number k,
resistance of the transformer, reactance of the transformer, and the off nominal
turns-ratio a.

Shunt element data: The data needed for the shunt element includes the bus
number where element is connected, and the shunt admittance (Gsh + j Bsh).

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

▪ The GS method is an iterative algorithm for solving non linear algebraic

equations.

▪ An initial solution vector is assumed, it is chosen from past experiences,

statistical data or from practical considerations.

▪ At every subsequent iteration, the solution is updated till convergence is

reached.

▪ In this section we will discuss the application of the GS method to the power
flow problem.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

Case (a): Systems with PQ buses only:

▪ Initially assume all buses to be PQ type buses, except the slack bus.

▪ This means that (n–1) complex bus voltages have to be determined.

▪ For ease of programming, the slack bus is generally numbered as bus-1.

▪ PV buses are numbered in sequence and PQ buses are ordered next in

sequence.

▪ This makes programming easier, compared to random ordering of buses.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

Consider the expression for the complex power at bus-i:

This can be written as:

Such that,

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

Rearranging the terms in the equation above and solving for Vi, we get:

▪ This is an implicit equation since the unknown variable, appears on both sides

of the equation.

▪ Hence, it needs to be solved by an iterative technique.

▪ Starting from an initial estimate of all bus voltages, in the RHS of the equation

the most recent values of the bus voltages is substituted.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

▪ One iteration of the method involves computation of all the bus voltages.

▪ In Gauss–Seidel method, the value of the updated voltages are used in the

computation of subsequent voltages in the same iteration, thus speeding up

convergence.

▪ Iterations are carried out till the magnitudes of all bus voltages do not change

by more than the tolerance value.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

The algorithm for GS method is as under:

1. Prepare data for the given system as required.

2. Formulate the bus admittance matrix YBUS This is generally done by the rule of

inspection.

3. Assume initial voltages for all buses, 2,3,…n. In practical power systems, the

magnitude of the bus voltages is close to 1.0 p.u. Hence, the complex bus

voltages at all (n-1) buses (except slack bus) are taken to be This is

normally referred to as the flat start solution.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

4. Update the voltages. In any iteration, from the voltage equation, the

voltages are given by:

▪ Note that when computation is carried out for bus-i, updated values are already

available for buses 2,3….(n-1) in the current (k+1)st iteration.

▪ Hence, these values are used. For buses (i+1)…..n, values from previous, kth iteration

are used.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

4. Continue iterations till:

▪ Where, ε is the tolerance value. Generally it is customary to use a value of

0.0001 p.u.

5. Compute slack bus power after voltages have converged using:

▪ Assume the slack bus to be bus 1

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

7. Compute all line flows.

8. The complex power loss in the line is given by Sik + Ski.

9. The total loss in the system is calculated by summing the loss over all the lines.

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 Example 4.1

Example 4.1: Obtain the voltage at bus 2 for the simple system shown in the figure,

using the Gauss–Seidel method, if

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 Example 4.1

Solution:
The capacitor at bus 2 injects a reactive power of 1.0 pu. The complex power

injection at bus 2 is

Since V1 is specified, it is a constant through all the iterations. Let the initial voltage at

bus 2 be

30
 Example 4.1

To get V21 we substitute the known voltage, active power, reactive power and
admittance values into the voltage equation:

To get V22 we substitute the obtained value of V21

31
 Example 4.1

We continue the iterations until we satisfy the condition

▪ Where, ε is the tolerance value and is generally taken to be 0.0001 p.u.

32
 Example 4.1

▪ Since the difference in the voltage magnitudes is less than 10-4 p.u., the
iterations can be stopped.

▪ To compute the power flowing through line 1-2:

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 Example 4.1

▪ The total loss in the line is given by

▪ It is observed that there is no active power loss, since the line has no resistance.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

Case (b): Systems with PV buses also present:

▪ At PV buses, the magnitude of voltage and not the reactive power is specified.

Hence, it is needed to first make an estimate of Qi to be used in the voltage

equation.

▪ From the complex power equation we get:

▪ Where Im stands for the imaginary part.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

▪ Now, at any (k+1)st iteration, at the PV bus-I

▪ therefore

▪ The steps for ith PV bus are as follows:

1. Compute Qi(k+1) using the equation above.

2. Calculate Vi using the voltage equation with Q i= Qi(k+1)

3. Since 𝑉𝑖 is specified at the PV bus, the magnitude of Vi obtained in step 2 has

to be modified to the specific value 𝑉𝑖 , 𝑠𝑝 . Therefore,

Note: the Voltage computation for the PQ buses does not change.
36
 Example 4.2

Example 4.2: For the 5-bus power system shown in the fig below, with the data as

given in tables below, obtain the bus voltages at the end of first iteration, by

applying GS method.

37
Example 4.2

38
 Example 4.2

Solution:

▪ Bus 1 is slack bus, Bus 2, 4, 5 are PQ buses, and Bus 3 is PV bus.

▪ The lines do not have half line charging admittances.

▪ From the bus data table, the net power injection of the buses are as follows:

39
 Example 4.2

▪ The Ybus matrix formed by the rule of inspection is given by:

▪ The voltages at all PQ buses are assumed to be equal to 1+j0.0 pu.

▪ The slack bus voltage is taken to be V10 = 1.02+j0.0 in all iterations.

40
 Example 4.2

▪ Bus 2 is a PQ bus, therefore, to find V21 , we substitute all the known values into the

voltage equation.

41
 Example 4.2

▪ Bus 3 is a PV bus. Hence, we must first calculate Q3. This can be done as under:

▪ Note that

▪ Therefore

42
 Example 4.2

▪ Substituting the values of the angles and solving for Q3 we get:

▪ Now substituting the value of Q3 into the voltage equation and solving for V31 we get:

43
 Example 4.2

▪ Since it is a PV bus, the voltage magnitude is adjusted to specified value and V31 is

computed as:

▪ Bus 4 is a PQ bus and its voltage is computed as:

44
 Example 4.2

▪ Bus 5 is a PQ bus and its voltage is computed as:

▪ Thus at end of 1st iteration, we have,

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

Case (c): Systems with PV buses with reactive power generation limits specified:

▪ In the previous algorithm if the Q limit at the voltage controlled bus is violated

during any iteration, i.e. Qi(k+1) computed using the derived reactive power

equation is either less than Qi, min or greater than Qi,max, it means that the

voltage cannot be maintained at the specified value due to lack of reactive

power support.

▪ This bus is then treated as a PQ bus in the (k+1)st iteration.

▪ and the voltage is calculated with the value of Qi set as follows:

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

▪ The voltage is calculated with the value of Qi set as follows:

▪ In the subsequent iteration, if Qi falls within the limits, then the bus can be

switched back to PV status.

47
 Example 4.3

Example 4.3: Obtain the load flow solution at the end of first iteration of the

system with data as given below. The solution is to be obtained for the following

cases:

I. All buses except bus 1 are PQ Buses

II. Bus 2 is a PV bus whose voltage magnitude is specified as 1.04 pu

III. Bus 2 is PV bus, with voltage magnitude specified as 1.04 and 0.25≤Q2≤1.0 pu.

48
Example 4.3

49
 Example 4.3

Solution :

▪ Note that the data is directly in terms of net injected powers at the buses.

▪ The bus admittance matrix is formed by inspection as under:

50
 Example 4.3

Case(i): All buses except bus 1 are PQ Buses.

51
Example 4.3

52
 Example 4.3

Case(ii): Bus 2 is a PV bus whose voltage magnitude is specified as 1.04 pu.

▪ We first compute Q2 from

54
Example 4.3

55
 Example 4.3

Case(iii): Bus 2 is a PV bus whose voltage magnitude is specified as 1.04 pu.

▪ If 0.25 ≤ Q 2 ≤ 1.0 pu then the computed value of Q2= 0.208 is less than the lower limit.

▪ Hence, Q2 is set equal to 0.25 pu. Iterations are carried out with this value of Q2 The

voltage magnitude at bus 2 can no longer be maintained at 1.04.

▪ Hence, there is no necessity to adjust for the voltage magnitude.

▪ Proceeding as before we obtain at the end of first iteration,

▪ Power flows in the TX lines are obtained using the bus voltages.
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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

Acceleration of convergence:

▪ It is found that in GS method of load flow, the number of iterations increase

with increase in the size of the system.

▪ The number of iterations required can be reduced if the correction in voltage at

each bus is accelerated, by multiplying with a constant α, called the

acceleration factor.

▪ In the (k+1)st iteration we can let

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

▪ where α is a real number. When α =1, the value of Vi(k+1) is the computed value.

▪ If 1 < α < 2, then the value computed is extrapolated.

▪ Generally α is taken between 1.2 to 1.6, for GS load flow procedure.

▪ At PQ buses (pure load buses) if the voltage magnitude violates the limit (± 5%

of Vnomial), it simply means that the specified reactive power demand cannot be

supplied, with the voltage maintained within acceptable limits.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

Limitations of GS load flow analysis:

▪ GS method is very useful for very small systems. It is easily adoptable, it can be
generalized and it is very efficient for systems having less number of buses.

▪ However, GS LFA fails to converge in systems with one or more of the following
features:

➢ Systems having large number of radial lines

➢ Systems with short and long lines terminating on the same bus

➢ Systems having negative values of transfer admittances

➢ Systems with heavily loaded lines, etc.

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 GAUSS – SEIDEL (GS) METHOD

▪ GS method successfully converges in the absence of the above problems.

However, convergence also depends on various other set of factors such as:

❑ Selection of slack bus,

❑ Initial solution, acceleration factor, tolerance limit,

❑ Level of accuracy of results needed, type and quality of computer/ software

used, etc.

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

▪ In general, a nonlinear algebraic equation set may not be able to solve by using

a direct method, It may only be possible to be solved with some numerical

method.

▪ The most widely used numerical method for solving simultaneous nonlinear

algebraic equations is the Newton-Raphson method.

▪ Newton's method is a successive approximation procedure based on an initial

estimate of the unknown variables and the use of Taylor's series expansion.

▪ The terms obtained from the Taylor’s series expansion are restricted to the first

order approximation. 61
 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

Load Flow using Newton-Raphson Method:

▪ Newton-Raphson (NR) method is more efficient and practical for large power
systems.

▪ Main advantage of this method is that the number of iterations required to obtain
a solution is independent of the size of the problem and computationally it is
very fast.

▪ Here load flow problem is formulated in polar form as:

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

▪ The two equations constitute a set of nonlinear algebraic equations in terms of

the independent variables, voltage magnitude in per unit and phase angles in

radians.

▪ We can easily observe that there will be two equations for each load bus given by

the two load flow equations, and one equation (P) for each voltage controlled

bus.

▪ Now, expanding the two load flow equations in Taylor-series and neglecting

higher-order terms. We obtain (see next slide),

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

▪ Bus 1 is assumed to be the slack bus in the above equation

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

▪ We can re-write the derived equations in a simplified form as:

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

Decoupled NR Load Flow Solution

▪ Transmission lines of power systems have a very low R/X ratio.

▪ For such system, active power mismatch ΔP are less sensitive to changes in the
voltage magnitude and are very sensitive to changes in phase angle Δδ.

▪ Similarly, reactive power mismatch ΔQ is less sensitive to changes in angle and

are very much sensitive on changes in voltage magnitude.

▪ Therefore, it is reasonable to set elements J2 and J3 of the Jacobian matrix to

zero. Therefore we get

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

▪ For voltage controlled buses, the voltage magnitudes are known.

▪ If m buses in the power system are voltage controlled, J1 is of the order (n-1) x
(n-1) and J4 is of the order (n-1-m) x (n-1-m).

▪ Now, the diagonal elements of J1 are given by:

▪ The off-diagonal elements of J1 are given by:

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

▪ Now, the diagonal elements of J4 are given by:

▪ The off-diagonal elements of J4 are given by:

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

▪ The terms ΔPi(p) and ΔQi(p) are the difference between the scheduled and
calculated values at bus i known as power residuals, and is given by:

▪ The new estimates for bus voltage magnitudes and angles are,

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

NR Decoupled Load Flow Algorithm

Step-1: Read system data

Step-2: Form Y-BUS matrix

Step-3: For load buses Pischeduled and Qischeduled are specified. Voltage magnitudes

and phase angles are set equal to the slack bus values, i.e. |Vi| = 1.0 p.u. ,

|δi| = 0.0 radian. For voltage controlled buses, where |Vi| and Pi scheduled a

re specified, phase angles are set equal to the slack bus angle δi = 0.0

radian.

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

Step-4: For load buses Pi(p) and Qi(p) are calculated using:

and ΔPi(p) and ΔQi(p) are calculated using

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

Step-5: For voltage controlled buses, compute Pi(p) and ΔPi(p) using the derived
equations

Step-6: Compute elements of J1 and J4 using the partial derivative equations

derived for finding the diagonal and off diagonal elements of J1 and J4 .

Step-7: Solve the following equations for computing Δδ and Δ |V|:

Step-8: Compute new voltage magnitudes and phase angles using:

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 NEWTON-RAPHSON METHOD

Step-9: Check for convergence, i.e. if

Step-10: Print output results.

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 Example 4.4

Example 4.4: The figure below shows the SLD of a sample 3-bus power system.
Data for this system is shown in the two tables. By performing 3 iterations, use the
decoupled NR method to:
I. Determine the phasor values of voltages at bus 2 and 3

II. Find the slack bus active and reactive power

III. Determine the line flows and line losses. Neglect line charging admittance .

74
Example 4.4

75
 Example 4.4

Solution: From the active and reactive power flow equations we have,

76
 Example 4.4

The partial derivatives are:

77
 Example 4.4

System Data:

Admittance from Y-Bus matrix,

Specified and assumed (flat start) bus voltages,

78
 Example 4.4

Substituting system data into the partial derivatives we get:

79
 Example 4.4

▪ For Fast Decoupled NR method, we set elements J2 and J3 of the Jacobian matrix
to zero.

▪ For this problem J1 and J4 are computed as below, and are assumed constant
throughout the iterative process.

The initial calculated active powers in p.u. are:

80
 Example 4.4

The initial calculated reactive powers in p.u. are:

The scheduled powers in p.u. are:

81
 Example 4.4

The change in powers is:

Using the Jacobian matrix, we find the change in phase angle from the change in
active power:

82
 Example 4.4

Similarly, using the Jacobian matrix, we find the change in voltage magnitude from
the change in reactive power:

83
 Example 4.4

The phase angle and voltage magnitude values for the first iteration are therefore:

2nd Iteration

▪ In load flow analysis, the computation of the Jacobian matrix elements J1 and J4
in each iteration is not required because they do not change much.

▪ J1 and J4 as computed above are assumed constant throughout the iterative

process.

84
 Example 4.4

▪ Calculating the change in active and reactive powers using the values calculated
in the first iteration.

85
Example 4.4

86
Example 4.4

87
Example 4.4

88
Example 4.4

89
 Example 4.5

Example 4.5: For the 3-bus power system shown below.

1. Use the NR-decoupled LF method to solve the LF problem. Perform 3

iterations.

2. Write a MATLAB code to compute the subsequent iterations and observe

whether the calculation is converging (Assignment 1).

90
 Example 4.5

The system data Is as follows:

91
Example 4.5

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Example 4.5

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Example 4.5

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Example 4.5

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Example 4.5

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Example 4.5

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Example 4.5

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Example 4.5

99