1

Empirical analysis of the variation

of distribution factors with loading
Ross Baldick, Member, Krishnan Dixit, Student Member, and Thomas J. Overbye, Senior Member

AbstractPower transfer distribution factors depend on the

operating point and topology of an electric power system.
However, in a recent paper, the power transfer distribution
factors were shown theoretically to be relatively insensitive to the
operating point.
In this paper, we provide empirical
corroboration of this theoretical result. The observations are
consistent with those made in several recent papers; however, the
systems considered in this paper are considerably larger than
have been reported in other studies.
Index TermsPower transfer distribution factors, shift factors,
DC power flow.

I. INTRODUCTION

n (incremental) power transfer distribution factor

(PTDF) is the sensitivity of the change in power flow on
a particular line to the change in the injection and
corresponding withdrawal at a pair of busses. According to
Kirchhoffs laws, PTDFs depend on the topology of the
electric power system, the behavior of controllable
transmission system elements as their limits are approached,
and on the operating point [1]. That is, PTDFs change when
an outage of a line occurs, if a controllable element reaches its
control limits, and also as the pattern of injections and
withdrawals change the loadings on the lines in the system.
In a recent paper [2], it was shown theoretically that the
PTDFs are approximately constant in a system with losses and
arbitrary fixed topology but having reactive compensation
sufficient to keep voltage magnitudes constant at all busses.
This result has also been demonstrated empirically in a
number of small and medium sized test systems. See, for
example, [3, 3.9][4] for empirical studies of the variation of
PTDFs for certain test systems.
In this paper, we empirically evaluate the variation of PTDFs
with loading by comparing the DC PTDFs, calculated from
the DC power flow approximation, to the incremental PTDFs
evaluated at a heavily loaded operating point. We consider
the three principal interconnections in North America:
The Eastern Interconnection,
Ross Baldick and Krishnan Dixit are with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, The University of Texas, Austin, TX78712 USA (email: Ross.Baldick@engr.utexas.edu and krisdixit@ece.utexas.edu).
Thomas J. Overbye is with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
USA (e-mail: overbye@ece.uiuc.edu).

The Western Interconnection, and

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)
Interconnection.
In each case, we consider incremental PTDFs evaluated at a
Summer peak base-case derived from FERC Form 715 data
[5] or an outage case derived from the Summer peak basecase. We refer the PTDFs calculated for an outage of a
transmission line as the outage transfer distribution factors
(OTDFs).
Similar results to some of those we present here for an
ERCOT peak base-case were also presented in [2]. However,
the PTDF comparisons for the considerably larger Western
and Eastern Interconnections represent, by far, the largest
such PTDF studies reported to date. Moreover, the outage
cases for ERCOT are the first examples of large scale testing
of the variation of OTDFs under stressed system conditions.
We also consider the PTDFs in ERCOT when significant
reactive capacity from transmission system capacitors is
unavailable. Both the line outage and the capacitor outage
cases involve stressed system conditions that are outside of
the strict region of validity of the theoretical results presented
in [2].
DC PTDFs can be interpreted as being equivalent to
incremental PTDFs at the (unrealistic) operating point where
the net real power injection at each bus is zero. That is, where
there are no net real power loads and no net real power
injections. We find that these DC PTDFs are almost identical
to the incremental PTDFs calculated at the Summer peak
base-case operating points. Similarly, we find that the DC
OTDFs are almost identical to the incremental OTDFs. Since
PTDFs and OTDFs vary smoothly with the operating point
except at the ultimate stability loading point [4], this means
that the PTDFs and OTDFs evaluated at all intermediate
loadings can also be expected to be very close to the
corresponding DC PTDFs and OTDFs, respectively.
In summary, we show that the DC PTDFs are extremely close
to the incremental PTDFs for the three large interconnections
in North America at any operating point up to the Summer
peak loading conditions, given the fixed topology of the
Summer peak base cases. Similarly, we show that the DC
OTDFs are close to the incremental OTDFs for the ERCOT
system.

Many market clearing mechanisms and transmission rights

schemes in use or proposed for North America make use of
the DC PTDF approximation [6,7,8]. As discussed in [9],
deviations between the DC and incremental PTDFs result in
different market clearing prices and consequently in different
market incentives.
Empirical verification of the
correspondence between the DC and incremental PTDFs
validates the use of DC models for the market clearing
mechanisms, at least under non-emergency conditions, and is
consistent with the observation in [9] that the locational
marginal prices calculated with DC and AC power flow
models are typically close together.
The paper is organized as follows. Section II presents a brief
literature survey. Section III discusses the study cases and the
computation of the PTDFs. Section IV presents the results
and we conclude in section V.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
PTDFs are often used in the context of approximating power
flows.
For example, Baughman and Schweppe use
distribution factors to approximate flows as a function of
injections and after a change in the topology of the network
[10]. Sauer formulates PTDFs for linear load flows in [11].
Ng describes PTDFs for calculating the change in flows on
lines given changes in generation and conforming changes in
load at the busses [12]. Wood and Wollenberg describe the
calculation of DC PTDFs using the DC power flow
approximation in [13, Appendix 11A] and discuss the
calculation of OTDFs [13, 11.3.2]. Sauer et al. also consider
OTDFs in [11] and [14, 5].
The evaluation of incremental PTDFs (or OTDFs) at an
operating point using the Jacobian of the power flow
equations is described in [13, 13.3]. Grijalva analyzes in
detail the variation of PTDFs in a three bus, three line
example system with voltages maintained constant and also
discusses how the PTDFs vary with loading. Grijalva shows
that if voltages are maintained constant at all busses then, as
loading increases from zero injection conditions, the
incremental PTDFs that were largest at zero injection tend to
decrease, while the PTDFs that were smallest at zero injection
tend to increase [3, 3.9].
Liu and Gross conduct an empirical study of the variation of
PTDFs with injections and with other changes [4]. They show
that, for the IEEE 118 bus RTS system and for a system
representing portions of the Eastern Interconnection, the
PTDFs typically change by a relatively small amount as the
levels of injections and withdrawals change.
Finally, Overbye, Cheng, and Sun study the effect on
locational marginal prices (LMPs) of using the AC or DC
power flow models [9]. They show that the differences in
LMPs are usually small between the two models.

III. STUDY DATA AND COMPUTATION OF PTDFS

We used data derived from FERC form 715 submissions to
model Summer peak base-cases for the three principal
interconnections in North America [5].
The DC and
incremental PTDFs were calculated using PowerWorld
Simulator [15]. The DC PTDFs were calculated on the basis
of the complex part of the line admittances (instead of the
inverse of the inductive reactances.) The incremental PTDFs
were calculated at the Summer peak operating points.
Following the direct and adjoint approaches to sensitivity
calculations [16, Chapter 9], the software provided a number
of different approaches for calculating PTDFs. In this paper
two approaches were used:
1. The PTDFs for each line in the system for injection
at a selection of buses and withdrawal at the
reference bus, and
2. The PTDFs for one selected line and for injection at
each bus in the system and withdrawal at the
reference bus.
In the first approach, the software allows for a weighted
average shift factor over the group of selected busses, called
an injection group. For example, a large generator might
provide a larger percentage of the total injection than a
smaller generator. We calculated PTDFs for injection groups
that consisted of generators in particular regions to be able to
cover a large number of combinations of busses and lines.
However, we also calculated some PTDFs for combinations
of individual generator busses to all lines to ensure that our
results were not an artifact of, for example, averaging PTDFs
over the injection group. In some cases, we used the second
approach to calculate PTDFs from all generator busses in
ERCOT to a particular line. In all cases, we will show PTDFs
as percentages.
IV. RESULTS
In this section, we describe the results for the ERCOT,
Western, and Eastern Interconnections.
A. ERCOT Interconnection
In this section, we compare the DC and incremental PTDFs
for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)
system. We first consider PTDFs for a 2003 Summer peak
case having 5165 busses and 5989 transmission lines. We
refer to this as the base case.
As well as the PTDFs for the base case, we also calculate
PTDFs for three line outage cases. That is, we consider
OTDFs for these three outage cases [13, 11.3.2][14, 5].
Finally, we consider PTDFs for a case where considerable
reactive support has been removed from the system.
1) Base case
Figure 1 shows DC PTDFs versus the incremental PTDFs
calculated for the base case for eleven different injection
groups distributed across ERCOT and for the 5989
transmission lines in ERCOT. Each injection group consists
of one or more generator busses associated with a particular

entity in ERCOT. The injection groups are: AENXA,

BPUB, CPS, DC East, HLP, LCRA, San Migul,
STECA, TMPPA, TNMP, and Oncor. 1 Each
injection group is illustrated with a different symbol in figure
1. For each PTDF, the point of withdrawal is the reference
bus.

absolute value of the difference between the DC and

incremental PTDFs is less than 4 percentage points. For most
of the PTDFs in figure 2, the absolute value of the difference
is less than 2 percentage points.

This case is similar to the one analyzed in [2] and the results
here are similar. There are approximately 66,000 DC PTDFs
and incremental PTDFs represented in figure 1.2 The PTDFs
are shown as percentages and essentially all of them fall on a
line with slope equal to one and intercept equal to zero.

Figure 2. Error between DC and incremental PTDFs versus

incremental PTDFs for 2003 Summer peak conditions for
ERCOT system.

Figure 1. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for 2003

Summer peak conditions for injection groups in ERCOT
system. PTDFs to each line in ERCOT and for each of eleven
injection groups are shown. The PTDFs for each group are
drawn with a different symbol. (Source: This figure was
produced using the same methodology, but with a slightly
different base case, as Figure 1 of [2].)

To further assess the error in using DC PTDFs instead of

incremental PTDFs, we consider the relative error, defined
by (DC PTDF incremental PTDF)/(incremental PTDF), and
plot the relative error versus the incremental PTDF, as shown
in figure 3. The points along the vertical axis in figure 3 show
that the relative error can be fairly large for some PTDFs;
however, these all correspond to cases where the incremental
PTDF is itself small. In cases where the incremental PTDF is
itself small, a large relative error will typically not cause
significant error in the calculation of the effect of an injection
and withdrawal on the flows on a line.

As discussed in [2, VII], figure 1 shows that for each

injection group and almost all lines, the DC PTDF and
corresponding incremental PTDF are essentially the same.
The only exceptions are the eleven PTDFs calculated for the
line that joins the reference bus to the rest of the system,
which have DC PTDFs equal to 100% but incremental PTDFs
greater than 100%. All power flowing to the reference bus
flows through this line and consequently the incremental
effect on losses throughout the system is reflected in this line.
To provide some perspective on the errors, we calculated the
difference between the DC and incremental PTDFs and
graphed them versus the incremental PTDFs in figure 2.
Figure 2 shows that, except for the PTDFs involving the line
connecting the reference bus to the rest of the system, the
1

DE East is the location of a DC intertie to the Eastern Interconnection.

There is no physical generation at this bus, but injection into ERCOT from the
Eastern Interconnection is modeled as generation at this bus.
2
In fact, since most of the injection groups consist of several generator
busses, there are hundreds of thousands of DC and incremental PTDFs
calculated and averaged across the injection groups to obtain the DC and
incremental PTDFs shown in figure 1 and subsequent figures.

Figure 3. Relative error in PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs

for 2003 Summer peak conditions for ERCOT system.
With the exception of the eleven PTDFs calculated for the
line that joins the reference bus to the rest of the system,
almost all of the points in Figure 3 that are not along the

vertical axis lie along the horizontal axis. These points show
that whenever the incremental PTDF is significantly different
from zero then the relative error is small. That is, the relative
error is small in the cases where the effect of an injection and
withdrawal is significant. In summary, the relative error is
small whenever the incremental PTDF is large, with the
exception of the eleven PTDFs for the line that joins the
reference bus to the rest of the system.

As a further test of the relationship between DC and

incremental PTDFs, we calculated the PTDFs for each of
these lines and all generator busses in ERCOT. There are 394
such generator busses. Figures 5-7 show the results. (Figure
5 shows the case for Graham-Parker, but the results for
Graham-Benbrook were essentially the same. The results for
each line in a double circuit are the same.)

Figures 1 to 3 show results for the first approach to PTDF

calculation described in section III with each point
representing the average across several busses in an injection
group. Potentially, this averaging across the busses in an
injection group could mask some discrepancy between the DC
and incremental PTDFs.
To investigate the possibility that the averaging across an
injection group masked some variation in PTDFs, we
considered PTDFs calculated from individual busses in an
injection group. We considered 10 generator busses in the
LCRA injection group and calculated DC and incremental
PTDFs for injection at each generator bus, withdrawal at the
reference bus, and for each line. The generators were selected
to be in different parts of the LCRA area.

Figure 5. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for 2003

Summer peak conditions for all generator busses to GrahamParker.

Figure 4 shows the results. Again, the DC and incremental

PTDFs are essentially identical, with the exception of the
PTDFs for the line that joins the reference bus to the rest of
the system. In particular, Figure 4 suggests that the use of
injection groups in figures 1 to 3 did not mask any significant
deviation between the DC and incremental PTDFs. In the rest
of this paper, for analysis of PTDFs to all lines, we will use
injection groups rather than individual busses so as to be able
to cover a large number of combinations of busses and lines.

Figure 6. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for 2003

Summer peak conditions for all generator busses to SandowTemple.

Figure 4. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for 2003

Summer peak conditions for generator busses in LCRA
injection group for all lines in ERCOT. The PTDFs for each
generator are drawn with a different symbol.
There are several main corridors of lines in ERCOT:
1. Graham-Parker and Graham-Benbrook,
2. the Sandow-Temple double circuit, and
3. the South Texas Project-Dow double circuit.

Figure 7. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for 2003

Summer peak conditions for all generator busses to South
Texas Project-Dow.
In almost all cases, the DC and incremental PTDFs are
essentially the same. However, there are a few exceptions. In
particular, for the Graham-Parker line there are several DC
PTDFs around 5% for which the incremental PTDFs are
somewhat larger. For the South Texas Project-Dow there are
several DC PTDFs around 13% to 14% for which the
incremental PTDF is 17% to 19%.
To determine whether these exceptions are typical or atypical,
we selected two of the generator busses, AMS #2 and
EPLVT, for which the DC and incremental PTDFs differed
significantly and calculated the PTDFs for these busses to all
lines in the ERCOT system. Figures 8 and 9 show the results.
These figures show that for these two busses, the DC and
incremental PTDFs are mostly very similar, although there is
a systematic deviation from equality that is at its most
pronounced for PTDFs around 15% to 30%.

These two busses, and the others with significant deviation in

figures 5-7, involve generators with relatively small capacity,
on the order of a few tens of MW. Consequently, errors
between the DC and incremental PTDFs would produce only
small errors in the predicted effect on the flow on most lines.
Significant errors between the DC and incremental PTDFs
occur for just a relatively small number of combinations of
such busses and lines.
2) Line outage cases
Outages of lines on the three main corridors in ERCOT
described in the previous section constitute the most
important transmission contingencies for ERCOT and
determine transfer capability between zones in the ERCOT
congestion management system [17].
Outage transfer
distribution factors (OTDFs) are necessary to properly
represent the effect of these constraints on operation of the
system [18]. We investigate whether the DC OTDFs are good
approximations to the incremental OTDFs.
The three outage cases we consider are:
1. Outage of Graham-Parker and Graham-Benbrook,
2. Outage of the Sandow-Temple double circuit, and
3. Outage of the South Texas Project-Dow double
circuit.
These are the three sets of contingencies that determine interzonal transfer capability in ERCOT.
Figures 10-12 show the DC OTDFs versus the incremental
OTDFs for the three outage cases, respectively. In essentially
all cases, and with the exception of the line that joins the
reference bus to the rest of the system, the DC OTDFs and the
incremental OTDFs are essentially the same.

Figure 8. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for 2003

Summer peak conditions for AMS #2 to all lines in ERCOT
system.

Figure 10. DC OTDFs versus incremental OTDFs for outage

of Graham-Parker and Graham-Benbrook.

Figure 9. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for 2003

Summer peak conditions for EPLVT to all lines in ERCOT
system.

Figure 13 shows the per unit voltages for the busses in the
system. In figure 13, the 5165 ERCOT busses have been
sorted in order of voltage and shown for the base case and the
capacitor outage case. Voltages have been lowered at most
busses but are still mostly within normal operating limits.

Figure 11. DC OTDFs versus incremental OTDFs for outage

of Sandow-Temple double circuit.

Figure 14 shows DC PTDFs versus the incremental PTDFs

calculated for the capacitor outage case for eleven different
groups of injection busses distributed across ERCOT and for
the 5989 transmission lines in ERCOT. 3 As in previous
graphs, the DC and incremental PTDFs are very similar, even
though the reactive support from capacitors in this system has
been reduced almost to the point where there is no solution.
This means that the DC PTDFs are a good approximation to
the incremental PTDFs even when voltage support from
capacitors is relatively weak in the system.

Figure 12. DC OTDFs versus incremental OTDFs for outage

of South Texas Project-Dow double circuit.
3) Capacitor outage cases
In [2], the conditions for small error between DC and
incremental PTDFs include the assumption that bus voltages
are maintained constant. To investigate the significance of
this assumption, we considered reducing the available reactive
support from transmission system capacitors. In the base case
system, there is approximately 11.6 GVAr of reactive support
from capacitors and about 14.7 GVAr of reactive support
from generators. We ordered the amounts of reactive support
from the capacitors from most to least and then outaged, in
order, each capacitor until the modified case would no longer
solve. We then replaced the last capacitor and re-solved the
case. We will call this the capacitor outage case. It
represents a system that is close to being infeasible because of
a lack of reactive support from capacitors.
The reactive support from capacitors in the capacitor outage
case is decreased from the base case to approximately 8.9
GVAr. Correspondingly, the reactive support from generators
is increased compared to the base case to approximately 18.0
GVAr, with increased reactive losses in the capacitor outage
system and lowered voltages at many busses, reflecting the
need to import reactive power from relatively remote
generators.

Figure 13. Per unit voltages in base case and capacitor outage
case.

Figure 14. DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for capacitor

outage case.
4) Summary
For almost every generator bus and line combination in the
ERCOT system, the DC PTDFs and incremental PTDFs are
3
The DC PTDFs are the same for the base case as for the capacitor outage
case since the DC PTDFs only depend on line impedance.

nearly the same. Significant deviations between DC and

incremental PTDFs occur for a small number of combinations
associated with:
the line connecting the reference bus to the rest of
the system, and
some generator busses having small capacity
generators.
For most bus and line combinations, the DC and incremental
PTDFs remain close together in a variety of line and
capacitor outage conditions.
B. Western Interconnection
In this section, we compare the DC and incremental PTDFs
for the Western Interconnection. We consider PTDFs for a
2004 Summer peak case having 13614 busses and 46013
transmission lines. We refer to this as the Western base case.
Figure 15(a)-15(d) show DC PTDFs versus the incremental
PTDFs calculated for the Western base case for twenty-two
different groups of injection busses distributed across the
Western Interconnection and for the 46013 transmission
lines. 4 As with the ERCOT case study, for the twenty-two
PTDFs calculated for the line that joins the reference bus to
the rest of the system, the DC and incremental PTDFs differ
somewhat. Moreover, for some injection groups there is a
consistent discrepancy between the DC and incremental
PTDFs. Nevertheless, the DC and incremental PTDFs are in
relatively close correspondence, although not as close as in
the ERCOT system.

Figure 15(a)-(d). DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for

Western base case. PTDFs to each line in the Western
Interconnection and for each of twenty-two injection groups
are shown.

C. Eastern Interconnection
In this section, we compare the DC and incremental PTDFs
for the Eastern Interconnection. We consider PTDFs for a
2000 Summer peak case having 33538 busses and 53552
transmission lines. We refer to this as the Eastern base case.

The injection groups are shown in separate graphs because our graphing
software was unable to plot all of the approximately 100,000 points on a single
graph.

We calculated DC and incremental PTDFs for 130 injection

groups distributed across the Eastern Interconnection and for
the 53552 transmission lines. Figure 16(a)-(b) shows typical

results for the DC PTDFs versus the incremental PTDFs.5 As

in the ERCOT system, there is a close correspondence
between the DC and incremental PTDFs.

In the Western Interconnection, there was a larger

discrepancy between DC and incremental PTDFs. In [2], it is
noted that the difference between DC and incremental PTDF
increases with the angle across a line. The Western
Interconnection has many long, stability limited lines,
suggesting that the angles across lines in the Western
Interconnection tend to be larger than in the ERCOT or
Eastern Interconnection. In turn, this accounts for the greater
discrepancy between DC and incremental PTDFs in the
Western Interconnection.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have demonstrated empirically that values of
DC PTDFs are very close to incremental PTDFs for practical
operating points of realistic power systems, with the Western
Interconnection showing greater discrepancies between DC
and incremental PTDFs than either the ERCOT or Esatern
Interconnections. We have also shown that DC OTDFs are
close to the values of incremental OTDFs for the ERCOT
system and that DC and incremental PTDFs in ERCOT
remain close even under outage of significant amounts of
reactive support from capacitors.

VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported, in part, by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission Office of Markets, Tariffs and Rates.
We would like to thank the Lower Colorado River Authority
for help with the operation of PowerWorld Simulator.
VII. REFERENCES

Figure 16(a)-(b). DC PTDFs versus incremental PTDFs for

Eastern base case. PTDFs to each line in the Eastern
Interconnection and for each of several injection groups are
shown.

D. Comparison of results for ERCOT, Western, and Eastern

Interconnection
For both the ERCOT and Eastern Interconnections, the
correspondence between DC and incremental PTDFs is very
close for a very large fraction of all combinations of busses
and lines. This is also true for the ERCOT system under
various line and capacitor outage situations.

As in the case of the Western Interconnection, we were only able to show a

small number of injection groups on each graph because of limitations in the
graphing software.

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9
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Ross Baldick is a Professor in the Department of Electrical

and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at
Austin. He received his M.S and Ph.D. in Electrical
Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of
California, Berkeley.
Krishnan Dixit is a graduate student in the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of
Texas at Austin
Thomas J. Overbye (S87-M92-SM96) received the B.S.,
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently a Professor
of electrical and computer engineering at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was with Madison Gas and
Electric Company, Madison, WI, from 1983-1991. His
research interests include power system operations and
visualization.