Lecture 7
Introduction
Power flow studies are of great importance in planning and operation.
A power flow study gives the magnitude and angle of the voltage at each bus.
Once the bus voltage magnitudes and angles are known, the real and reactive
power flow through each line can be computed and hence losses in a system.
Power flow studies are a steady state analysis of a power system. They are called
as load flow studies.
Since the loads are specified in terms of power, the resulting equations are non-
linear algebraic which need to be solved iteratively.
We use numerical methods such as Gauss-Seidal and Newton-Raphson Methods
for solving them.
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Power Flow Problem
• The problem consists of determining the magnitudes and
phase angles of voltages at each bus.
• As a by-product, active and reactive power flow in equipment
such as transmission lines and transformers, as well as losses
can be computed.
• In solving power flow problem, the system is assumed to be
operating under balanced conditions and normally a single
phase model is used.
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Characterization of Variables
• Loads (PL, QL) – Uncontrolled (disturbances) variable
• Generation (PG, QG) – control variable
• Voltage (V, δ) - State variables.
• Therefore we have four quantities associated with each
bus.
i. Voltage magnitude V
ii. Phase angle, δ
iii. Active power, P
iv. Reactive power, Q
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Bus Classification
i. Slack bus (Swing or Reference Bus) – is used to balance the
active and reactive power in the system and is taken as
reference bus. V and δ are specified.
ii. Load buses (P-Q buses) – the reactive (Q) and real (P) power
are specified at these buses. V and δ are unknown.
iii. Regulated buses (P-V buses) – P and V are specified. Q and δ
to be determined. The limits on the value of Q may be
specified.
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Load Flow: Power balance and the slack bus
• Active and reactive power balance:
• Pnetwork−Loss and Qnetwork−Loss are not predictable (depends on the network
state).
→it is not possible to impose the value of the power for all buses.
• Slack Bus is used to provide system losses by emitting or absorbing
active/reactive power to or from the system.
• (is chosen to be the most important generator or the connection with an
important network.)
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Load Flow Equations
From this relationship, the mathematical formulation of the power flow problem results in a
system of algebraic non-linear equations which must be solved by iterative techniques.
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Load Flow Equations
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Solving Nonlinear equation
• The study of Power Systems requires sometimes solving
nonlinear algebraic equations.
• Iterative techniques are used for solving these equations.
• The most common are:
i. Gauss-Seidel method
ii. Newton-Raphson method
iii. Quasi-Newton method.
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Gauss-Seidel Method for Solving Nonlinear
Equations
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• The power flow equation is usually expressed in terms of the elements of
the bus admittance matrix. Since the off-diagonal elements of the bus
admittance matrix Ybus, shown by uppercase letters, are and the
diagonal elements are a and the equations becomes.
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Practice Question
• Fig below shows the one-line diagram of a simple three-bus power system with
generation at bus 1. The magnitude of voltage at bus 1 is adjusted to 1.05 per
unit. The scheduled loads at buses 2 and 3 are as marked on the diagram. Line
impedances are marked in per unit on a 100-MVA base and the line charging
susceptance are neglected
• Using Gauss-Seidel method, a) determine the phasor values of the voltage at load buses 2 and
3 (P-Q buses) to 4 decimal places. b) Find slack bus real and reactive power. c) Determine the
line flows and line losses. d) Construct a power flow diagram showing the direction of line
flow.
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Practice Question
• Figure below shows the single-line diagram of three-bus power system with
generator at buses 1 and 3. The magnitude of voltage at bus 1 is adjusted to 1.05
per unit. Voltage magnitude at bus 3 is fixed at 1.04 per unit with a real power
generation at 200 MW. A load consisting of 400 MW and 250 Mvar is taken from
bus 2. Line impedances are marked in per unit on a 100 MVA base and the line
charging susceptance are neglected. Obtain the power flow solution by Gauss
Seidel method including line flows and line losses.
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