I

A New Approach to Load Flow Solutions for

Radial Distribution System
T. Thakur, and Jaswanti Dhiman

Abstract- This paper presents a new approach to load flow time to time. In [1]-[5] optimal load flow methods for losses
solutions for radial distribution system, in which the choice of the reduction in distribution system are proposed. In [6] a simple,
switches to be opened is based on the calculation of voltage at the fast and approximate heuristic based algorithm for
buses, real and reactive power flowing through lines, real power determining the minimum loss configuration of RDN.
losses and voltage deviation, using distribution load flow (DLF) Numerous other [7]-[17] reported works on load flow are for
program. In the process of load flow calculation, two developed
matrices bus injection to bus current (BIBC) and branch current radial system with a focus on reduction of Kilowatt losses,
to bus voltage (BCBV), and a simple matrix multiplication and/or load balancing in feeder reconfiguration, energy
are used to obtain load flow solutions. The solution converges restoration and combinatorial optimization problem by using
very early on; therefore execution time is very small. Particular mathematical programming and traditional Artificial
attention is paid to the relationship between electrical parameters Intelligent approaches on a similar problem with improvement
of the distribution system and the mathematical parameters that
influence the convergence properties of the algorithm. The results in loss reduction in less computational time. The commonly
reveal the speed and the effectiveness of the proposed method used methods [18] using Gauss Implicit Z-matrix does not
for solving the problems. exploits the radial and weakly meshed network structure of
distribution systems which requires the solution of a set of
Index Terms---Distribution network reconfiguration, Loss equations of the size proportional to the number of buses.
minimization, Power flow control, Radial distribution network However, [19] provides compensation based technique to
(RDN). solve distribution load flow problems, where branch power
I. INTRODUCTION flow rather than branch current were used in improved version
in new data format. By using the special topological
L OSS minimization in power distribution system is one of characteristics of distribution network, the bus injection - to
- the biggest challenges before power engineers. branch current matrix and the branch current to bus voltage
Transmission and distribution losses are as high as 20 to 30 matrix and a simple multiplication are used to obtain the load
percent of total power generation. Therefore, the challenge is flow problem solutions technique [20]. This has been applied
more pronounced in case of distribution systems. Basic reason for two different topologies under distribution reconfiguration
behind these huge power losses is resistive loss, as well as [21] for loss minimization.
distribution systems are operated at much lower voltages as Therefore, the paper presents a new approach load flow
compared to transmission systems. So, in totality, we can say program to solve the load flow problem in radial distribution
that, optimal operation of a distribution power networks has networks, in which the choice of the switches to be opened is
become an engineering challenge. based on the calculation of voltage at the buses, real and
In real time applications that are Supervisory Control and reactive power flowing through lines, real power losses and
Data Acquision System (SCADA), Distribution Automation voltage deviation, using distribution load flow (DLF)
(DA) for the management of radial distribution system (RDS) program. An IEEE 33-bus radial distribution test system is
such as network optimization, VAR planning, Switching, state taken as a study system for performing the test of DLF
estimation and so forth require a robust and efficient load flow program. The proposed load flow method has been found to
method. The traditional load flow methods such as Gauss- give better result than those obtained by some other recent
Seidel and Newton Raphson fail to meet the above methods reported in [21]. The results reveal the speed and the
requirement. Therefore, there is need to develop a load flow effectiveness of the proposed method for solving the
solutions to meet the properties of RDS with less problems.
computational time.
Several load flow algorithms specially designed for II. MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM FORMULATION
distribution systems have been proposed and published so far A. Computation of Voltages at the Buses
In order to obtain load flow solutions, first objective is to
obtain voltages at the buses. If Vk is the voltages of the buses
T.Thakur and Jaswanti are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, after kth iteration, then voltages at the buses after (k+l)th
Punjab Engineering College (Deemed University), Chandigarh, India -160012 iteration is given by
(e-mail:ti1ak2 420,! ao;onaswan ti98@ya hoo.co.in) Vk = Vk -AVk (1)
Here A Vk is change in bus voltages after two successive
iterations.
1-4244-0288-3/06/$20.00 (©2006 IEEE
 2
B. Real Power Flow
The algorithm is used to calculate the load flow is a novel
P1 = Real[Vi{(V - Vj)y }I] (2) one in. The only input data of this algorithm is the
Here Pij is the real power flowing through the line conventional bus-branch oriented data used by most utilities.
connecting ith and jth buses, Vi and Vj are the voltages of ith Here, the objective is to develop a formulation, which takes
and jth bus respectively and Yij is the admittance of the line advantages of the topological characteristics of distribution
between ith and jth buses. systems, and solve the distribution load flow directly.
C Reactive Power Flow The distribution Networks, the equivalent-current-
injection-based model is more practical as shown in Fig. 1.
Qij =-Im ag[V,{(Vi - V )y}] (3) For bus i, the complex load Si is expressed by
Here Qij is the reactive power flowing through the line
connecting ith and jth buses. Si =(Pi+jQi) i=l ...... N. (6)
D. Real Power Loss Corresponding equivalent current injection at the kth
N
iteration of solution is
Loss = Real v [Vs5 - Vjy)]Y, PDJ} (4) lik = Iik(Vik) + j Iii(Vik) KPi+ jQi (7)
LsSS
iJi
Where V,, and Vj in Eq. (4) refers to the voltages at main Where Vik and lik are the bus voltage and equivalent current
substation and bus j, respectively, yss,j refers to the line injection of bus I at the kth iteration, respectively. Iir and Iii are
admittance between the main substation bus and bus j, PDj the real and imaginary parts of the equivalent current injection
refers to the real power load at bus j and N the number of of bus i at the kth iteration respectively.
buses in the radial distribution system (RDS). The power injection can be connected to the equivalent
current injections by using (7) and relationship between the
E. Voltage Deviation Index (VDI) bus current injections and branch current can be obtained by
In order to quantify the extent of violation of limits applying Kirchoff's current law (KCL) to the distribution
imposed on voltages at buses in a RDS, the following Voltage network. The branch currents can then be formulated as
Deviation Index (VDI) has been defined. functions of equivalent current injections. For example the
branch currents B1, B2 and B5 can be expressed by equivalent
NVB current injections as
(VLjVLiLIM)2
VDI= i'= (5) B1 =12+13+14 +15+16
N
B3 = 14 + 15
Subject to VjMJN< Vj < vyA j e lto N B5 = 16 (8)
Where NVB is the number of buses that violates the
prescribed voltage limits and VL1LIM is the upper limit of the Ith Therefore the relationship between the bus current
load bus voltage if there is upper limit violation or lower limit injections and branch currents can be expressed as
if there is a lower limit violation.
During reconfiguration, if the state of the system has [B] = [BIBC] [I] (9)
voltage limit violations; the given solution must try and The constant BIBC matrix is an upper triangular matrix
minimize the index VDI. and contains values of 0 and +1 only.
The relationship between branch currents and bus voltages
III. ALGORITHM DEVELOPMENT can be obtained as follows
A sample distribution system drawn below is taken here to
illustrate the methodology [20]. V2 = V1 - B1 Z12 (10.1)
Bus Bus
V3 = V2 - B2 Z23 (10.2)
4 5
V4 V3 - B3 Z34 (10.3)
Where Vi is the voltage of bus i, and Zij is the line
Bus Bus B3
1 2 impedance between bus i and bus j. Substituting (10.1) and
Bus
3 (10.2) into (10.3), the equation (10.3) can be written as
V4 = V1 -B1 Z12-B2Z23 -B3 Z34 (1 1)
12 13 From (11), it can be seen that the bus voltage can be
expressed as a function of branch currents, line parameters and
6us the substation voltage. Similar procedures can be performed
on another buses; therefore the relationship between branch
16 currents and bus voltages can be expressed as

Fig. 1. Equivalent current injection based model of distribution network Delta V =

[BCBV] [B] (12)
 3
The algorithm can easily be expanded to a multiphase line
section or bus. For example, if the line section between bus i
and bus j is a three phase line section, the corresponding
branch current will be a 3x 1 vector and the +1 in the BIBC
matrix will be a 3 x 3 identity matrix. Similarly, if the line
section between bus i and bus j is a three phase line section,
the Zij in the BCBV matrix is a 3 x 3 impedance matrix.
The BIBC and BCBV matrices are developed based on the
topological structure of distribution systems. The BIBC matrix
represents the relationship between bus current injections and
branch currents. The corresponding variations at branch
currents, generated by the variations at bus current injection
can be calculated directly by the BIBC matrix. The BCBV
matrix represents the relationship between branch current and
bus voltages. The corresponding variations at bus voltage,
generated by the variations at branch currents can be
calculated directly by the BCBV matrix. Combining equation
(9) and (12), the relationship between bus current injections and
bus voltages can be expressed as

[AV] = [BCBV] [BIBC] [I]

[AV] = [DLF] [I] (13)
DLF is a multiplication matrix of BCBV and BIBC
matrices and the solution for distribution load flow can be
obtained by solving (8) iteratively as

ik = lik (Vik) + j Iii (Vik) (Pi+jQi (14.1)

Vi k)
[AV K1] = [DLF] [1k] (14.2)

[Vk 1] =[V°] + [AVk+l] (14.3)

It means that the time consuming L-U decomposition and
forward backward substitution of the Jacobian matrix or the Y
admittance matrix, required in the traditional Newton-
Raphson and Gauss implicit Z matrix algorithms, are not
necessary in the new development.
According to the research, the arithmetic operation, number
for LU factorization is approximately proportional to N3. For a
large value of N, the LU factorization will occupy a large
portion of the computational time. Therefore if the LU
factorization can be avoided, the load flow method can save
tremendous computational resource.
IV. FLOW CHART
Fig. 2 show a flowchart of the proposed method, based on
the algorithm as discussed in the previous section for two
different configurations the base case and the optimal case for
a 33 bus radial Distribution System Reconfiguration.
Fig. 2. Proposed algorithm for distribution system reconfiguration
V. TEST RESULTS
The proposed algorithm for distribution system
reconfiguration has been tested on 33-bus RDS given in
Fig. 3. Substation voltage is 12.66 KV and base MVA has
been taken as 10 MVA; the load data, line details and the tie
lines available for switching in [21].
System has five tie lines. The two configurations are
termed as Base Configuration and Optimal Configuration
respectively. Using DLF program voltages at the buses, real
and reactive powers flowing through lines, real power loss and
voltage deviation index (VDI) were calculated for the two
configurations. Electrical Transient Analyzer Program (ETAP)
simulation was performed and results obtained from the
simulation proved the authenticity of the program developed.
Results are shown here in three parts as base case, optimal
case and comparisons between various results.
 4

01
Solutions to the voltages at the buses obtained show that at
02 each bus, voltage in case DLF program is better than those in
19 - 03 case of ETAP simulation results. Worst bus voltage in case of
20 - 04 ETAP is 0.908 and that in case of DLF method it is
21 - 05 0.914.Also the best voltage is higher in case of DLF solutions.
22 T 1 06 Once the voltages become higher, the losses are bound to be
07
reduced. For the same load, power drawn in case of ETAP
solutions is higher as compared to that obtained by DLF
io method. This only signifies the fact that losses in latter case
have been reduced.
12
13 B. Solution Graph for Base Case
Legend 14 Following are the graphs, which show voltages at the buses
_ Substation 165
_ Bus 16
after each iteration. Graphs after each iteration are almost
ne
Tie line 17
looking alike. This signifies the fact that solutions get
18 converged very early on.
Fig. 3. A 33-bus radial distribution system 1
Comparative Voltage Variations Along the Lines After Subsequnt Iterations
Base Case
0.99
Reduction in the real power loss, improved voltage
deviation and increased bus voltages are the merits shown by 0.98

the method used. This can be under stood by having a look on o0.97

the following tables: o0.96

TABLE I > 0.95

m
Case Loss(DLF/ VDI(DLF Worst Lines switched 0.94
0o93
given in /given in Voltage out
0.92
[21]) in [21]) (DLF/given
u 91I
KW in [21]in p.u. 6 10 16
Busno.
20 25 30

Base 201.42/ 0.0174/ 0.9143/ 33E- 34 -35 - Fig. 5. Comparative voltage variations along the lines after subsequent
211 0.0248 0.9038 36W- 37E iterations

Optimal 158.24/ 0.0039/ 0.9388/ 06 -14 - 09 - 32 The valley point or lower most point shown in the Fig. (5)
178 0.0041 0.9378 - 37 shows the lowest voltage bus and the lowest bus voltage is on
C Tie Lines, Substation Voltage = 12.66 kV bus number 18 of the system investigated. This bus is situated
at extreme end of the network. There is no significant change
TABLE II in shapes of the graphs for different iterations which was
plotted for all the iterations simultaneously shows that there is
very little deviation in bus voltages in first iteration and
second iteration. It only signifies the fact that load flow
solutions get converged very early on, even in second
iteration. Because of the above fact, execution is very fast.
Best voltage is at bus number 2 and worst at bus number 18.
C. Comparison of Base and Optimal Voltages
A. Comparison Between the Bus Voltages
Bus Voltages for Base & Optimal Cases
* DLF
1.02

-*- ETAP EL

I
I"
Softw are 0.98
o Optimal
0.96 _ ~ Case
0.94 -_- --i_Base
2)
0.92 "E0 _1j
IR~~ Case
m 0.9
0.88
0.86
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
Buses

Fig. 6. Base and optimal voltage comparison

Fig. 4. Voltage comparison
 5
Results obtained indicate that the approach to load flow
Voltage Comparision solutions is much superior to the previous approaches such as
1.02 used in [6], [21] and ETAP software. For example even in
1 base configuration the worst voltage is better than the worst
0.98
voltage obtained through ETAP simulation. Also, voltages at
0.
+-Optimal Bus
Voltages(DLF)
._

un 0.96 the majority of buses are greater than those obtained by the
M 0.94 --Optimal Bus
0 0.92 Voltages[6] other methods such as in [6] and ETAP simulation. Also, real
and reactive powers drawn are lower for the same demand.
0.9
This aspect leads the system to have lower losses and better
0.88
0.86 T 1 T 1 r r T r T 1 r T r T 1 r T r T 1 r r T 1 r T
voltage deviations index (VDI) as shown by the results.
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 The voltage was improved by 4.50% and 1 1.lI% in base case
Buses and optimal case respectively. Voltage deviation index was
Fig. 7. Voltage comparison for optimal cases improved by 30% and 4.8% in base case and optimal case
respectively. Similarly worst voltage was improved by 1.16%
Fig. (6) compares the results obtained for the two cases and 0.106% in base case and optimal case respectively.
considered It is concluded that voltages at the buses in case of
optimal case is much better than that in the base case for VI. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
majority of buses. Few buses have lower voltages (in case of In this a new approach, load flow program to solve the load
optimal case) than that in base case. Fig. (7) compare the flow problems in radial distribution system has two matrices,
results of optimal bus voltage and [6]. Again the results of which are developed from the topological characteristics of
optimal DLF case are better than [6] optimal case. distribution systems. The BIBC matrix represents the
D. Comparison ofBase and Optimal Real and Reactive Power relationship between bus current injections and branch
currents, and BCBV matrix represents the relationship
between branch current and bus voltages. These two matrices
Real Power Comparision
are combined to form a direct approach for solving load flow
4000 problems. The execution time is extremely smaller as
Re3500 -k compared to known methods of other load flow methods for
Pal3000 -
Real Power radial distribution systems, such as fast decoupled and Gauss
m~500- (Base Case)
(k
V\)2000 Implicit Z-matrix method. Here, we do not require to compute
Real Pover
1500 EL-
(Optimaol Case' Z-matrix or jacobian.
1000 [2 This method is extremely fast, so this can be used in online
3 5 7
500
application. This merit of the proposed method can be
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 exploited in distribution automation, this will require
Line No. interfacing of an improved form of this program and
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.
Fig. 8. Real power comparison
Utilization of this approach of load flow and developed load
flow program in radial distribution system for optimal
Fig. (8) and (9) are showing the comparisons between real operation is that it is very effective and solutions get
and reactive power respectively flowing through the lines in conversed even in second iteration; therefore, the execution
the two cases. In optimal case lesser real power is required time of the proposed method is quite small. This is the
because the loss has been decreased. This was the objective to advantage for distribution system where the load varies
be achieved through reconfiguration. This discussion is indiscriminately. Limitation of the program is that it can be
equally applicable to reactive power. used only for the radial distribution system and, not for
meshed distribution systems and transmission systems.
Reactive Power Comparision
2500 VII. REFERENCES
[1] C.S.Cheng and D.Shirmohammadi, "A Three Phase Power Flow Method
<2000-
>- Reactive Power
to Real-Time Distribution System Analysis, IEEE Trans. Power Syst.,
(Base Case) vol.10, pp 671-679, Nov.1995.
Reactive Power
[2] R.D.Zimmermann and H.P.Chiang, "Fast Decoupled Power Flow for
1i000
000 (Optimal Case) Radial Distribution System," IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol.10,
Nov. 1995.
C~500 [3] Antonio Gomez Exposito Esther Romero Ramos, "Reliable Load Flow
Technique for Radial Distribution Networks," IEEE Trans. Power Syst.,
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1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 [4] Mesut E.Baran & Felix F. Wu, "Network Reconfiguration in Distribution
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[7] Hoyong Kim, Yunseok Ko & Kung-Hee Jung, "Artificial Neural-Network
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[8] Ji-Yuan Fan, L.Zhang & John D. McDonald, "Distribution Network
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[10] Jin-C Wang, Hsiao-Dong Chiang & G.R.Darling, "An Efficient
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[12] Tsai-Siang Chen & Jen-T. Cherng, "Optimal Phase Arrangement of
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[13] K.N.Miu, H.D.Chiang, and R.J.Mcnulty, "Multitier service restoration
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[14] Raman A Gallego, A.J.Manticelli & Ruben Romero, "Optimal Capacitor
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[15] Antonio Augugliaro, L.Dusonchet, M.G.Ippolito & E.R Sanseverino,
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6
[18] D.Shirmohammadi, H.W.Hong, A.Semlyen & G.Y.Luo, "A
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VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Tilak Thakur is born in 1963. He
graduated from B.I.T. Sindri, in Electrical
engineering in 1987. He completed his
Post graduation in Power System from the
same institute and achieved his Ph.D in
Electronic Instrumentation from Indian
School of Mines, Dhanbad in the area of
SCADA in 1999. He served as a lecturer
in B.I.T., Sindri and NERIST Arunachal
Pardesh. Presently, he is Assistant
Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Punjab
Engineering College (PEC), Chandigarh, India.. He has a teaching
experience of more than 15 years. He is involved in active Research
in Power System Automation and Control
Mrs. Jaswanti graduated in Electrical
Engineering from Punjab Engineering
College, Chandigarh, India in 1993. She
got her master of Engineering from same
institute in 1997. She is currently doing
her Ph.D in power system. She is also a
associate member of IEI and ISTE. Her
main research interests are power
_ distribution system operation, analysis and
control.