An operations-oriented formulation and solution to the load flow problem

Abstract

This paper presents an operations-oriented formulation and solution to the load flow problem. In this approach all the unit real power outputs are assumed specified and the objective is to calculate the bus loads. This fundamental change is useful in some power system problems and is also closer to the actual problem facing a load flow user. Different solution approaches, including a decoupled method, are proposed to solve the above problem. The numerical and analytical properties of this new decoupled load flow approach are similar to those of the conventional decoupled method. The main advantages of this proposed approach are: all the bus generations can be specified, a slack or swing bus need not be defined, and losses are independent of a choice of reference bus. This fundamental change in the load flow formulation has various applications. These include transmission loss evaluation, loss penalty factor calculation, and study applications in energy management systems.