Network Calculations 1
1.0 The Bus Admittance and Impedance
Matrices
Bus Admittance Matrix
I = YV
Principal diagonal elements of Y are called self-
admittances. Each equals the sum of all
admittances terminating on the node.
Off-diagonal elements of Y are called mutual
admittances. Each equals the negative of the sum
of all admittances connected directly between the
nodes.
Exercise: The diagram below shows a power
system:
(a) with its impedances expressed in pu and
(b) with its pu impedances translated to pu
admittances
Find the bus admittance matrix
1
Bus Impedance Matrix
The Zbus is the inverse of the Ybus, i.e.,
-1
Z =Y (1)
Since we know that
I = YV (2)
and therefore
-1
V =Y I (3)
then
V = ZI (4)
Principal diagonal elements of Z are called
driving-point impedances.
Off-diagonal elements of Z are called transfer
impedances.
2
In developing the power flow problem, we
choose to work with Ybus.
The reason for this is that the power flow
problem requires an iterative solution that
can be made very efficient when we use Ybus,
due to the sparsity (lots of zeros) in the matrix
used in performing the iterations (the
Jacobian matrix).
However, in developing fault analysis methods,
we will choose to work with Zbus.
Once we have one current injection derived
from a fault condition, eq. (4) is very easy to
evaluate in order to obtain all bus voltages in
the network, and once we have bus voltages,
we can get all currents everywhere. These
currents are the currents under the fault
conditions and are used to design protection
systems.
The Zbus is not sparse (no zeros). But
fortunately, fault analysis does not require
iterative solutions, and so the computational
benefit of sparsity is not significant in fault
analysis.
3
2.0 The meaning of Zbus elements
We can write the Zbus relation for a three-bus
network as
éV1 ù é Z 11 Z 12 Z 13 ù é I 1 ù
êV ú = ê Z Z 22 Z 23 úú êê I 2 úú
ê 2 ú ê 21
êëV3 úû êë Z 31 Z 32 Z 33 úû êë I 3 úû
(5)
We understand by eq. (5) that the independent
sources are all current sources, and eq. (5) allows
us to compute the voltages resulting from those
current sources being injected into the network.
Let’s inspect more closely one of the equations in
(5). Arbitrarily choose the second equation.
V2 = Z 21 I1 + Z 22 I 2 + Z 23 I 3(6)
Now solve for driving point impedance of bus 2,
Z22.
V2 - Z 21 I1 - Z 23 I 3
Z 22 =
I2 (7)
But what if we set I1 and I3 to 0, i.e., what if we
open-circuit buses 1 and 3? In other words, let’s
deactivate all sources at these buses.
4
This means that we will open any current sources
at nodes 1 and 3 so that there are no sources there
(but there may be load impedances). Then eq. (7)
is:
V2
Z 22 =
I2 I1 = I 3 = 0
(8)
Equation (8) says that Z22 is the ratio of bus 2
voltage to the bus 2 current injection when all
sources are idled. This is the definition of the
Thevenin impedance.
Conclusion: The diagonal elements of the Zbus
are the Thevenin equivalent impedances seen
looking into the network at that bus.
We can go through similar analysis to see:
V2
Z 21 =
I1 I = I =0
2 3 (9)
V1
Z 12 =
I2 I1 = I 3 = 0
(10)
5
We can therefore obtain transfer impedances Z21
(Z12) by opening buses 2 (1) and 3, injecting a
current at bus 1 (2), measuring (computing) the
bus 2 (1) voltage.
The figures below illustrate these operations (note
there exist impedance to ground at each bus,
although we do not draw them).
Bus 1 Bus 2
V2
y12
I2
y11 y23
Z22=V2/I2
Bus 3
Bus 1 V2 Bus 2
y12
I1
y11 y23
Z21=V2/I1
Bus 3
6
Note on building Zbus for fault analysis
One important attribute to building the Zbus for
fault analysis is that the generator subtransient
reactances should be included. This means that it
is necessary to include an additional bus for every
generator in order to enable distinguishing
between the high side of the generator internal
voltage from the network side of the generator
subtransient reactance.
The figure below illustrates the difference
between generator representation for power flow
analysis and generator representation for fault
analysis.
jX’’d
Generator Generator
representation representation
for power flow for fault
analysis analysis
7
3.0 Final Remarks
You should recall that it is easy to develop the
Ybus. From that, one can invert it to obtain the
Zbus. However, in spite of the fact that Matlab is
quite capable of matrix inversion for small
dimension, you CANNOT think about just
inverting Ybus since we must, eventually, live in
the real world of 5000+ bus models.
As a result, we must turn to the so-called Zbus
building algorithm, based on modification to an
already existing Zbus. This will be studied in
Network Calculations 2.
