Analysis of The Load Flow Problem in Power System
Analysis of The Load Flow Problem in Power System
Abstract
Load flow is an important tool used by power engineers for planning, to determine the best opera-
tion for a power system and exchange of power between utility companies. In order to have an ef-
ficient operating power system, it is necessary to determine which method is suitable and efficient
for the system’s load flow analysis. A power flow analysis method may take a long time and there-
fore prevent achieving an accurate result to a power flow solution because of continuous changes
in power demand and generations. This paper presents analysis of the load flow problem in power
system planning studies. The numerical methods: Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson and Fast De-
coupled methods were compared for a power flow analysis solution. Simulation is carried out us-
ing Matlab for test cases of IEEE 9-Bus, IEEE 30-Bus and IEEE 57-Bus system. The simulation re-
sults were compared for number of iteration, computational time, tolerance value and conver-
gence. The compared results show that Newton-Raphson is the most reliable method because it
has the least number of iteration and converges faster.
Keywords
Load Flow, Bus, Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson, Fast Decoupled, Voltage Magnitude, Voltage Angle,
Active Power, Reactive Power, Iteration, Convergence
1. Introduction
In a power system, power flows from generating station to the load through different branches of the network.
The flow of active and reactive power is known as load flow or power flow. Load flow analysis is an important
tool used by power engineers for planning and determining the steady state operation of a power system. Power
How to cite this paper: Afolabi, O.A., Ali, W.H., Cofie, P., Fuller, J., Obiomon, P. and Kolawole, E.S. (2015) Analysis of the
Load Flow Problem in Power System Planning Studies. Energy and Power Engineering, 7, 509-523.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/epe.2015.710048
O. A. Afolabi et al.
flow studies provide a systematic mathematical approach to determine the various bus voltages, phase angles,
active and reactive power flows through different branches, generators, transformer settings and load under
steady state conditions. The power system is modeled by an electric circuit which consists of generators, trans-
mission network and distribution network [1].
The main information obtained from the load flow or power flow analysis comprises magnitudes and phase
angles of load bus voltages, reactive powers and voltage phase angles at generator buses, real and reactive power
flows on transmission lines together with power at the reference bus; other variables being specified [2] [3]. The
resulting equations in terms of power, known as the power flow equations become non-linear and must be
solved by iterative techniques using numerical methods. Numerical methods are techniques by which mathe-
matical problems are formulated so that they can be solved with arithmetic operations and they usually provide
only approximate solution.
For the past three decades, various numerical analysis methods have been applied in solving load flow analy-
sis problems. The most commonly used iterative methods are the Gauss-Seidel, the Newton-Raphson and Fast
Decoupled method [4]. Also with the industrial developments in the society, the power system kept increasing
and the dimension of load flow equation also kept increasing to several thousands. With such increases, any
numerical mathematical method cannot converge to a correct solution. Thus power engineers have to seek more
reliable methods. The problem that faces power industry is how to determine which method is most suitable for
a power system analysis. In power flow analysis, a high degree accuracy and a faster solution time are required
to determine which method is best to use.
Hand calculations are suitable for the estimation of the operating characteristics of a few individual circuits,
but accurate calculations of load flows or short circuits analysis’ would be impractical without the use of com-
puter programs. The use of digital computers to calculate load flow started from mid 1950s. There have been
different methods used for load flow calculation. The development of these methods is mainly led by the basic
requirement of load flow calculation such as convergence properties, computing efficiency, memory require-
ment, convenience and flexibility of the implementation [5]-[9]. With the availability of fast and large size digi-
tal computers, all kinds of power system studies, including load flow, can now be carried out conveniently [10].
The numerical method provides an approach to find solution with the use of computer, therefore there is need to
determine which of the numerical method is faster and more reliable in order to have best result for load flow
analysis.
This paper compares numerical methods: Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson and Fast Decoupled methods use
for load flow analysis; for test cases of IEEE 9-Bus, IEEE 30-Bus and IEEE 57-Bus system to determine which
of the method is best for power system planning studies.
2. Bus Classification
A bus is a point or node in which one or many transmission lines, loads and generators are connected. In a pow-
er system study, every bus is associated with 4 quantities, such as magnitude of voltage (|V|), phase angle of
voltage (δ), active power (P) and reactive power (Q) [2] [3] [11] [12]. Two of these bus quantities are specified
and the remaining two are required to be determined through the solution of equation [13]. The buses are classi-
fied depending on the two known quantities that have been specified. Buses are divided into three categories as
shown in Table 1.
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Variables
No. Type of Bus
P Q |V| δ
of the generator. Often, limits are given to the values of the reactive power depending upon the characteristics of
individual machine. The known variable in this bus is P and |V| and the unknown is Q and δ [8] [12].
The nodal equation can be written in a generalized form for an n bus system.
Pi jQi
I i (4)
Vi
Substituting for Ii in terms of Pi & Qi , the equation gives
Vi j 1 yij j 1 yijVj
Pi jQi n
n
ji (5)
Vi
The above equation uses iterative techniques to solve load flow problems. Hence, it is necessary to review the
general forms of the various solution methods; Gauss-Seidel, Newton Raphson and Fast decoupled load flow.
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Psch jQsch k
i
i yijVj
V ik 1 Vi
ji (6)
yij
Using Kirchhoff current law, it is assumed that the current injected into bus i is positive, then the real and the
reactive powers supply into the buses, such as generator buses, Pi sch and Qisch have a positive value. The real
and the reactive powers flowing away from the buses, such as load buses Pi sch and Qisch have a negative val-
ues. Pi and Qi are solved from Equation (5) which gives
P k 1 Real V k n y V
n
k
ji (7)
i i i0 ij ji i
Q Imaginary V
k 1 k
n
y n V k j i (8)
i i j 1 ij ji i
The power flow equation is usually expressed in terms of the bus admittance matrix, using the diagonal elements
of the bus admittance and the non-diagonal elements of the matrix, then the Equation (6) becomes,
Psch jQsch
YijVj (k )
k 1 i
V *(k ) i
VI i (9)
Yii
and
i i
Pk 1 Real V k Vk Y n
i ii i1, j 1
y V k
ij j
ji (10)
P k 1
Imaginary V k
V Y
k
i1, j1 y V
n k
ji (11)
i i i ii ij j
The admittance to the ground of line charging susceptance and other fixed admittance to ground are included
into the diagonal element of the matrix.
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P
i
n
V V Y cos
j 1 i j ij
ij i
j
(15)
Q
i
n
V V Y sin
j 1 i j ij
ij i j
(16)
The above Equation (15) and (16) constitute a set of non-linear algebraic equations in terms of |V| in per unit and
δ in radians. Equation (15) and (16) are expanded in Taylor’s series about the initial estimate and neglecting all
higher order terms, the following set of linear equations are obtained.
P2k P2
k
P2
k
P2k
2 n V2 Vn
Pk Pk
2 2
k
Pnk Pk Pnk P
n n
k
P 2 n V2 Vn Pnk
n
Q K K
Q Q K
Q K
Q K Q K
2 2 2 2
2 2
2 n V2 Vn
k
Q Qk
n n
Q K
n Q
K
Q K Qn K
n n
2 n V2 Vn
In the above equation, the element of the slack bus variable voltage magnitude and angle are omitted because
they are already known. The element of the Jacobian matrix are obtained after partial derivatives of Equations
(15) and (16) are expressed which gives linearized relationship between small changes in voltage magnitude and
voltage angle. The equation can be written in matrix form as:
P J1 J3 (17)
Q J J V
2 4
J1, J2, J3, J4 are the elements of the Jacobian matrix.
The difference between the schedule and calculated values known as power residuals for the terms Pik
k
and Q i is represented as:
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This method is a modification of Newton-Raphson, which takes the advantage of the weak coupling between
P and Q V due to the high X:R ratios. The Jacobian matrix of Equation (17) is reduced to half by ig-
noring the element of J2 and J3. Equation (17) is simplified as:
P J1 0 (22)
Q 0 J V
4
Expanding Equation (22) gives two separate matrixes,
P
P J (23)
P
Q J 4 V V V (24)
P
B (25)
Vi
Q
B V (26)
Vi
B' and B'' are the imaginary parts of the bus admittance. It is better to ignore all shunt connected elements, as to
make the formation of J1 and J4 simple. This will allow for only one single matrix than performing repeated in-
version .The successive and voltage magnitude and phase angle changes are
P
B
1
(27)
V
Q
V B
1
(28)
V
4. Simulation Results
The simulation for Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson and Fast Decouple is carried out using Matlab for test cases
of IEEE 9. The base mva, selected valve for iteration (tolerance), and maximum numbers of iterations is speci-
fied. Figure 1 show IEEE 9-Bus System one line diagram, [12]. The simulation results are shown in Figure 2,
Figure 3 and Figure 4 for Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson and Fast Decouple respectively.
IEEE 9 bus system represented in Table 2 consist of Bus 1 which act as a slack bus. It consist of 8 load buses,
which are bus connected to load and 2 generator buses which are connected to generator. Bus 5 and 8 act as both
load and generator bus because they are connected to generator and load.
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Figure 2. Show simulation result for IEEE 9 bus system using gauss-seidel.
Figure 3. Show the simulation result for Newton-Raphson method on a 9 bus network system.
Figure 4. Show the simulation result for fast decouple method on a 9 bus network system.
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IEEE 9-bus system consist of eleven line data as represented in Table 3, which shows the values for resis-
tance, reactance and half susceptance in per unit for the transmission line connected together. It also shows the
tap setting values for transformers and the position of the transformers on the transmission line. The information
is used to form the admittance bus matrix.
Table 4 represents the line flow and line losses for each of the IEEE 9 bus system. The line losses are com-
pared for the three numerical methods; Gauss-Seidel, the Newton-Raphson and Fast Decoupled method. Fast
Decoupled method have the highest total losses of 6.279 MW, 14.893 Mvar, followed by Gauss-Seidel with to-
tal losses of 4.809 MW, 10.798 Mvar and Newton Raphson method with the least losses of 4.585 MW and
10.789 Mvar.
LOAD DATA
1 Slack 1.0300 0 0 0
2 PQ 1.0000 0 10 5
3 PQ 1.0000 0 25 15
4 PQ 1.0000 0 60 40
5 PQ 1.0600 0 10 5 80
6 PV 1.0000 0 100 80
7 PQ 1.0000 0 80 60
8 PV 1.0100 0 40 20 120
9 PQ 1.0000 0 20 10
LINE DATA
Transformer
Bus No. Bus No. R, PU X, PU 1/2 B, PU
Tap
2 3 0.0180 0.0560 0 1
3 9 0.0200 0.0600 0 1
4 6 0.0200 0.0660 0 1
6 9 0.0100 0.0500 0 1
7 8 0.0320 0.0760 0 1
8 9 0.0220 0.0650 0 1
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Table 4. Line flow and losses comparing for IEEE 9 bus system.
1 2 47.024 5.514 0.381 0.199 46.912 10.350 0.393 0.238 47.411 8.677 0.396 0.244
1 4 103.50 −25.023 1.600 3.997 103.225 −10.714 1.522 3.766 104.675 −37.340 1.742 4.418
2 3 36.633 1.317 0.233 0.725 36.519 6.113 0.239 0.743 37.018 4.435 0.242 0.752
3 9 11.390 −11.405 0.051 0.152 11.280 −6.631 0.034 0.101 11.775 −8.317 0.041 0.123
4 5 11.520 −70.300 0.620 1.070 11.585 −59.488 0.454 0.620 12.085 −84.209 0.877 1.771
4 6 30.343 1.291 0.175 0.577 30.119 5.009 0.179 0.591 30.860 2.456 0.180 0.594
5 7 38.216 68.414 0.786 1.376 38.188 68.302 0.798 1.422 40.374 96.919 1.382 2.903
6 9 −27.806 13.579 0.092 0.460 −27.670 12.022 0.089 0.445 −29.323 34.386 0.194 0.972
7 8 −42.572 7.039 0.571 1.357 −42.610 6.880 0.583 1.385 −40.984 34.028 0.870 2.066
8 9 36.846 9.327 0.300 0.885 36.806 6.024 0.294 0.869 38.138 −13.924 0.355 1.050
5. Discussion
5.1. Tolerance
The selected tolerance iteration value used for the simulation is shown in Table 5. This is used to determine how
accurate a solution will be. Thus, using a high tolerance value for a simulation increases the accuracy of the so-
lution whereas when a low tolerance value is used, it reduces the accuracy of the solution and number of itera-
tions. The selected tolerance value used for the simulation is 0.001 and 0.1 except for the IEEE 57 bus system
solution for fast decouple, which does converge with 0.001. The only selected tolerance value used for IEEE 57
bus system is the 0.1.
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(a)
(b)
(c)
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(a)
(b)
(c)
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IEEE 9 Bus 45 7 9
IEEE 9 Bus 12 2 4
IEEE 30 Bus 36 4 3
IEEE 57 Bus 17 5 6
5.4. Convergence
Convergence is used to determine how fast a power flow reaches its solution. The rate of convergence is deter-
mined by plotting a graph of maximum power mismatch against the number of iterations. Figures 7(a)-(c)
shows the graph for convergence on IEEE-9, IEEE-30 and IEEE-57 Bus System respectively using selected ite-
ration value of 0.001. Figures 8(a)-(c) shows the graph for convergence on IEEE-9, IEEE-30 and IEEE-57 Bus
System respectively using selected iteration value of 0.1. The convergence rate for Gauss-Seidel is slow com-
pared to the other methods. Newton-Raphson has the fastest rate of converging among the three numerical me-
thods shown in the graph.
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(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 7. (a) Convergence for IEEE 9 bus system using selected iteration
value of 0.001; (b) Convergence for IEEE 30 bus system using selected
iteration value of 0.001; (c) Convergence for IEEE 57 bus system using
selected iteration value of 0.001.
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(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 8. (a) Convergence for IEEE 9 bus system using selected iteration
value of 0.1; (b) Convergence for IEEE 30 bus system using selected
iteration value of 0.1; (c) Convergence for IEEE 57 bus system using se-
lected iteration value of 0.1.
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6. Conclusions
All the simulations were carried out using Mathlab and implemented for IEEE 9-bus, IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 57-
bus test cases for Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson and Fast Decouple. In the load flow analysis methods si-
mulated, the tolerance values used for simulation are 0.001 and 0.1 for all the simulation carried out except for
the IEEE 57-bus using the fast decouple method, which did not converge with the tolerance values. This ex-
plains why the Fast Decouple method is not as accurate as Newton-Raphson method because a lower tolerance
value of 0.1 was used to carry out the simulation for the IEEE 57-bus Fast Decouple Method.
The time for iteration in Gauss-Seidel is the longest compared to the other two methods, Newton-Raphson
and Fast Decouple. The time for iterations in Gauss-Seidel increases as the number of buses increases. The
Gauss-Seidel method increases in arithmetic progression, Newton-Raphson increases in quadratic progression
while the fast decouple increases in geometric progression. This explains why it takes longer time for Gauss-
Seidel to converge. The computational time for Gauss-Seidel is low compared to the other two methods; New-
ton-Raphson and fast decouple. Newton-Raphson have more computational time due to the complexity of the
Jacobian matrix for each iteration but still converges fast enough because less number of iterations are carried
out and required.
The results of this paper suggest that the planning of a power system can be carried out by using Gauss-Seidel
method for a small system with less computational complexity due to the good computational characteristics it
exhibited. The effective and most reliable amongst the three load flow methods is the Newton-Raphson method
because it converges fast and is more accurate.
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