Topic :

Load Flow Studies

Presented By:
Arshdeep Kaur
Department of Electrical Engineering
GNDEC ,Ludhiana
 What is a Load Flow Study???

It is a steady-state analysis whose target is to determine

the
 Voltages
 Currents
 Real and Reactive power flows in a system under a
given load conditions

A load flow study also known as power-flow study

 A load flow study is done on a power system to
ensure that

 Generation supplies the demand (load) plus losses.

 Bus voltage magnitudes remain close to rated values
 Generation operates within specified real and reactive
power limits
 Transmission lines and transformers are not overloaded.
A Load Flow Study Specifically Investigates the
Following

 Bus bar voltages

 Effect of rearranging circuits and incorporating new
circuits on system loading.
 Effect of injecting in-phase and quadrature boost
voltages on system loading.
 Optimum system running conditions and load
distribution.
 Optimum system losses.
 Optimum rating and tap range of transformers.
 Power-flow Analysis Equations
The basic equation for power-flow analysis is derived from the
nodal analysis equations for the power system.
For example, for a 4-bus system

where Yij are the elements of the bus admittance matrix,

Vi are the bus voltages
Ii are the currents injected at each node.

•The node equation at bus i can be written as

 Power-flow Analysis Equations
 Relationship between per-unit real and reactive power supplied
to the system at bus i and the per-unit current injected into the
system at that bus:

where Vi is the per-unit voltage at the bus;

Ii* - complex conjugate of the per-unit current injected at the bus;
Pi and Qi are per-unit real and reactive powers.

Therefore,
Power-flow Analysis Equations
 The Load Flow Problem

 The starting point of a load flow problem is a single line

diagram of the power system, from which input data for
computer solutions can be obtained. Input data consist of bus
data, transmission line data and transformer data.

 A bus is a node at which one or many lines, one or many loads

and generators are connected.
 Formulation of load-flow study

In a power system each node or bus is associated with 4

quantities, such as
1. Magnitude of voltage V
2. Phage angle of voltage δ
3. Active power P
4. Reactive power Q

In load flow problem two out of these 4 quantities are specified
and remaining 2 are required to be determined through the
solution of equation.
 Bus Classification
Depending on the quantities that have been specified, the
buses are classified into 3 categories.

Classification Of
Buses

Slack Bus/Swing Generator Bus/PV

Bus Load Bus/PQ Bus
Bus
Each bus is categorized into one of the following bus types:

1. Swing bus / slack bus

Bus Defined To Defined Application

Slack bus V and δ P and Q There is only one
usually bus of this type in
V1= 1 d1 =0o given power system

This is numbered as
one for convenience
2.Load bus (P-Q bus)

Bus Defined To Defined Application

PQ bus Pi and Qi Vi and δi It is pure load bus (no
generator at the bus)

 These most common

bus comprising almost
80% of all of the busses in
power system.

It is required to specify only Pd and Qd at such bus as at a load bus

voltage can be allowed to vary within the permissible values
3. Generator bus (P-V bus)

Bus Defined To Defined Application

PV bus Pi and Vi Qi and δi This bus always a
generator connected to it.

PV bus Comprise about

10% of all the buses in
power system
 Methods for solving the load flow problem.

The power flow equations are non-linear, thus cannot be

solved analytically. A numerical iterative algorithm is
required to solve such equations

There are 4 methods of solving the load flow problem.

A) The Gauss Seidel Method

B) The Newton Raphson Method
C) Decoupled Newton Method
D) Fast decoupled method
 A standard procedure follows

1.Create a bus admittance matrix Ybus for the power system

2.Make an initial estimate for the voltages (both magnitude and phase angle) at
each bus in the system

3.Substitute in the power flow equations and determine the deviations from the
solution.

4.Update the estimated voltages based on some commonly known numerical

algorithms (e.g., Newton-Raphson or Gauss-Seidel).

5.Repeat the above process until the deviations from the solution are minimal.
 Load Flow by Gauss-Seidel Method

Gauss Seidel Method

It is an iterative algorithm for solving a set of non linear algebraic

equation. A power system is considered consisting of n number of
buses .

 Let it be assumed that all the buses other than the slack bus are PQ
buses

 The slack bus voltage is specified and for (n-1) PQ buses the bus
voltage magnitude and angles are assumed .

These values are then updated through an iterative process .

 ALGORITHM
Algorithm for system if only PQ buses are present

Step 1 With the load profile known at each bus allocate PGi and QGi
to all generating stations .With this step ,bus injection ( Pi+jQi)are
known at all the buses than the slack bus

Step 2 Formation of bus admittance matrix YBUS

Step 3. Iterative computation of bus voltage :

A set of initial voltage values is assumed and flat voltage start i.e. all
voltage are set equal to the (1-j0) Except the voltage of the slack bus.
Bus voltage are calculated using equation
Where

 
And i=2,3,4……..n k=1,2,3…n also k≠i

Step 4 Computation of slack bus power : Computation of all

bus voltages in step 3 yields
Si*= (Pi -jQi )

Step 5.Computation of line flows :Power flows on the various

lines of the network are computed .
Algorithm modification when PV buses are also present

At PV buses
P and │V│ are specified and Q and δ are unknowns to be
determined . Therefore the values of Q and δ are to be updated in
every GS iteration. Let 2,3,…..m are PV buses and remaining
m+1,…..n are PQ buses

Step1: Qi is calculated for each bus using equation

Revised value Qi is obtained in each iteration is calculated by

following equation
Step2 : Revised value of δ is obtained using equation
δi(r+1) = Vi(r+1)

Step3: Q at this bus should be within range

if set and treat bus i as a PQ bus. Compute

if set and treat bus i as a PQ bus. Compute

 

Disadvantages
 It convergence much slower and may be sometimes fail to do so.
 Load flow by Newton-Raphson Power Flow

It is a powerful method of solving non linear algebraic

equations.
Its works faster and is sure to convergence in most of the cases
as compared to GS method .

Algorithm

Step 1. With voltage and angle at the slack bus fixed. Assume
│V│ and δ at all PQ buses and δ at all PV buses .use flat
voltage start
Step 2. Compute ∆Pi (for PV and PQ buses) and ∆Qi (for all the
PQ buses) from equation

If all the values are less than tolerance , stop the iteration,
calculate Pi and Qi

Step 3. If the convergence criterion is not satisfied, evaluate

elements of the jocobian.

Step 4. Solve equation f0= [-J0] ∆x0 for corrections of voltage

angles and magnitudes.

Step 5. Update voltage angles and magnitude by adding the

corresponding changes to previous values and return to step 2.
 Newton-Raphson Power Flow
 Advantages
 fast convergence as long as initial guess is close to solution
 large region of convergence.

 Disadvantages
 each iteration takes much longer than a Gauss-Seidel iteration
 more complicated

 Newton-Raphson algorithm is very common in power flow analysis

the only drawback is large requirement of computer memory
 Decoupled Newton Method

Decoupled load flow method is very similar to Newton

method but achieved after some assumption for the sake of
simplification .There is weak interaction between P-V and q-
δ.,

This assumption gives faster computation with reasonable

accuracy

=
(1)
 (2)

(3)

Eqs 2 and 3 can be constructed and solved simultaneously

with each other at each iteration, updating the H and L in
each iteration using eqs

A better approach is to conduct each iteration by first

solving eqs 2 for and the updated delta in
constructing and then solve eqs 3 for
 Advantage And Disadvantage

 The main advantage of DLF is its reduced memory

requirement in storing jocobian elements .

 Storage of jocobian and matrix triangularisation is saved by

factor 4, that is an overall saving of 30-40%

 Computation time per iteration is less

 However the decoupled load flow takes more number of

iteration to converge because of approximation made.
 FAST DECOUPLED METHOD
In this method some assumption are made to make
the computation process faster with reasonable
accuracy.
The assumption are
1 .There is weak physical interaction between MW
and MVAR flows in power system therefore MW-δ
and MVAR- V calculation can be decoupled
=0

2. Angle differences( δi- δk) across transmission lines

are small under normal loading condition i.e
 e

For a transmission line reactance is very high as

compared to resistance
i.e can be ignored.

Importance

In Fast decoupled load flow method converges into two to five
iteration
The method is more reliable
The speed of iteration of FDLF fast
In FDLF the storage requirement are 60% of the NR method
and slightly more than the decoupled NR method
 Comparison Of Load Flow Methods
PARAMETERS OF GAUSS SIEDEL NEWTON FAST
COMPARISION METHOD RAPSON DECOUPLED
METHOD LOAD FLOW
Coordinate Rectangular Polar Coordinates Polar
Coordinates Coordinates
Arithmetic operation Less in no. to complete Elements of Less than
one iteration jocobian to be Newton
calculated in each Raphson
iteration
Time Less time /iteration, Time Per Iteration Less Time As
increases with the Is 7 Times Of GS Compared To
number of buses. And Increases With NR And GS
number Of Buses Method
PARAMETERS OF GAUSS SIEDEL NEWTON FAST
COMPARISION METHOD RAPSON DECOUPLED
METHOD LOAD FLOW
Convergence Linear Quadratic Geometric
convergence convergence convergence
No of iteration Large no., Very less for large Only 2or5 iteration
increases with system and is for practical
number Of buses practically constant accuracy
Slack bus selection Choice of slack Sensitivity to this Moderate
bus affect minimal
convergence
adversely
Accuracy Less accurate More accurate Moderate
PARAMETERS OF GAUSS SIEDEL NEWTON FAST
COMPARISION METHOD RAPSON DECOUPLED
METHOD LOAD FLOW
Memory Less memory Large memory even Only 60% of
because of with compact memory when
sparsity of matrix storage scheme compared to NR
Usage Small size system Large system, ill Optimization
conditioned studies multiple
problem, optimal load flow studies
load flow studies

Programming logic Easy Very difficult Moderate

Reliability Reliable only for Reliable for large More reliable than
small system system NR method
 Conclusion

 Load-flow studies are important for planning future expansion of

power systems as well as in determining the best operation of
existing systems.

 Load flow studies also provide the information about the line and
transformer load through the system.

 We have formulated the algorithm and designed the MATLAB

programs for bus admittance matrix, converting polar form to
rectangular form, Gauss-Siedel method and Newton Raphson
method for analyzing the load flow bus systems.
THANK
YOU