A Theory of Solvability for Lossless Power Flow Equations—Part II: Conditions for Radial Networks

Abstract

This two-part paper details a theory of solvability for the power flow equations in lossless power networks. In Part I, we derived a new formulation of the lossless power flow equations, which we term the fixed-point power flow. The model is parameterized by several graph-theoretic matrices -- the power network stiffness matrices -- which quantify the internal coupling strength of the network. In Part II, we leverage the fixed-point power flow to study power flow solvability. For radial networks, we derive parametric conditions which guarantee the existence and uniqueness of a high-voltage power flow solution, and construct examples for which the conditions are also necessary. Our conditions (i) imply convergence of the fixed-point power flow iteration, (ii) unify and extend recent results on solvability of decoupled power flow, (iii) directly generalize the textbook two-bus system results, and (iv) provide new insights into how the structure and parameters of the grid influence power flow solvability.