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Introduction
Chapter 3
Load Flow Studies
The computational procedure required to determine
the steady-state operating characteristics of a
power system network is termed load flow (or
power flow).
The aim of power flow calculations is to determine
the steady-state operating characteristics of a
power generation/transmission system for a given
set of bus bar loads.
Active power generations are specified according to
economic dispatching.
- Magnitudes and phase angles of load bus voltages .
- Reactive powers and voltage phase angles at generator
buses .
- Real and reactive power flow on transmission lines.
- Power at the reference bus.
This information is essential for the continuous
monitoring of the current state of the system.
The information is also important for analyzing the
effectiveness of the alternative plans for the future,
such as adding new generator sites, meeting increased
load demand and locating new transmission sites.
Electrical transmission systems operate in their
steady-state mode under normal conditions.
Three major problems encountered in steady-
state mode of operations are listed below :
1. Load flow problem
2. Optimal load dispatch problem
3. Systems control problem
The magnitude of generation voltage is
maintained at the specified level by an automatic
voltage regulator acting on the machine excitation.
Loads are specified by their constant active and
reactive power requirements.
The loads are assumed to be unaffected by the
small variations of voltage and frequency expected
during normal steady-state operation.
The main information obtained from the load flow
study consists of:
The single-line diagram of a power system
having four buses is shown in Figure 2. 1
In the power system, the variables defined
on each bus are:
- Complex powers supplied by generators Sg1
and Sg2
- Complex powers drawn by loads, Sd1 , Sd3,
and Sd4
- Complex voltages, V1 ,V2 ,V3 and V4.
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• The transmission system may be a primary transmission

system or sub-transmission system.
• The primary transmission system transmits bulk power
from the generators to the bulk power substations.
• The sub-transmission system transmits power from the
substations or some old generators to the distribution
substations.
• The transmission system has to be designed in such a
manner that the power system operation is, reliable and
economic and no difficulties are encountered in its
operation.

In system operation and planning, the voltages

The difficulties involved are:
- One or more transmission lines becoming
overloaded .
- Generators becoming overloaded .
- The stability margins for a transmission link
being too small
There may be emergencies, such as:
- The loss of one or more transmission links .
- Shutdown of some generators which gives rise to
overloading of other generators and transmission
links.
and powers are kept within certain limits.
The power system networks of today are highly
complicated consisting of hundreds of buses and
transmission links.
Thus, the load flow study involves extensive
calculations.
With the advent of fast digital computers with
huge memory, all kinds of power system studies
including the load flow study can now be carried
out conveniently.

NETWORK MODEL FORMULATION The surplus power at some of the buses is

A real-life power system comprises a large transported via transmission lines to buses
number of buses for a load flow study. deficit in power.
These buses are interconnected by means of
The single-line diagram of a three-bus
transmission lines.
system is shown in Figure 2.2. Normally a
Power is injected into a bus from generators,
transmission line is modeled by a nominal-л.
while the loads are tapped from it.
There may be some buses with no generation- while the line resistance is always
facilities and some buses may have VAR neglected in load flow analysis.
generators attached to them.

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The power at the ith bus injected into the

transmission system is called the bus power and
is defined as

 The equivalent power source at the ith bus injects

current Ii into the bus.
 All the sources are always connected to a common
ground node.
The transmission lines are replaced by their nominal-л
equivalent (Figure 2.3).
The line admittance between the nodes i and k is
depicted by Yik and Yik = Yki
 The mutual admittances between the lines is assumed
to be zero.
Applying the Kirchhoff’s current law (KCL) at nodes 1,
2, and 3, respectively (Figure 2.4):

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LOAD FLOW PROBLEM

The complex power injected by the source into

the ith bus of a power system is
*
S i  Pi  jQi  Vi I i (i  1,2,.........., NB )
NB
Substituting the value of Ii   Yik Vk in the above power equation
k 1

V Z I (2.10)
Bus Bus Bus

Separating the real and imaginary parts of above

equation to get real and reactive powers.

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The above equation can also be written as
or
Slack Bus/Swing Bus/Reference Bus
 Voltage magnitude and voltage phase angle are
specified.
 Normally, voltage magnitude is set to 1 pu and
voltage angle is set to zero.
 The real and reactive powers are not specified.
- The known parameters are voltage
magnitude |V |, and voltage angle δi .
- The unknown parameters are real power Pi
and reactive power Qi
The known variables on bus are real
power Pi and the reactive power Qi the
unknowns are voltage magnitude |Vi |
and voltage angle δi.
The PQ buses are the most common
comprising almost 85% of all the buses in
a given power system.
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Separating the real and imaginary parts of the
above equation to get real and reactive powers
PQ Bus/Load Bus
A pure load bus is a PQ bus. A load bus has no generating
facility (i.e. Pgi = Qgi = 0).
At this type of bus, the net real power Pi and the reactive
power Qi are known as
Where
Pgi , Qgi are the real and reactive power generations at the
bus respectively.
Pdi, Qdi are the real and reactive power demands at the bus
respectively.
Pdi and Qdi are known from load forecasting and Pgi and Pgi
are specified.
PV Bus/Generator Bus
A generator is always connected to a PV bus.
the net power Pi known as Pdi load forecasting.
- The known are real power Pi and the voltage
magnitude |Vi | .
- The unknowns are reactive power Qi and the
voltage angle δi.
- PV buses comprise about 15% of all the buses
in a power system.
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Voltage-Controlled Buses
Limits
Generally the PV buses and the voltage-controlled buses
are grouped together but these buses have physical  For static load flow equations (SLFE) solution to
difference.
have practical significance all the state and control
The voltage-controlled bus has also voltage control variables must be within the specified practical
capabilities, and uses a tap-adjustable transformer
limits.
and/or a static VAR compensator instead of a generator.
Hence, P gi= Qgi =0 at these buses.  These limits are represented by specifications of
Thus Pi = - Pdi and Qi =- Qdi at these buses.. power system hardware and operating
The known are real power Pi , reactive power Qi and
constraints, and are described as follows:
voltage magnitude |Vi|.
The voltage angle δi is an unknown parameter.

COMPUTATION OF LINE FLOWS

Consider the line connecting the buses i and k figure below

Where:
Yik is the series admittance
Yik0 , Yki0 are the shunt admittances

Figure Transmission line connecting i and k buses

The current fed by the bus i into the line can be expressed as Substituting the conjugate of above equation

Similarly, the power injected into the line from bus k to bus i is

The power loss in the (i- k)th line is the sum of the power
flows in the (i- k)th line from the ith bus and the kth bus,
respectively, i.e.

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Total transmission losses can be computed by summing all
the line flows of the power system.
The slack bus power can also be obtained by summing the
line flows on the lines terminating at the slack bus.
MODELLING OF REGULATING
TRANSFORMERS
Transformers provide real power and reactive
power flow along a transmission line.
Real power can be controlled by means of
shifting the phase of voltage and reactive power
by changing its magnitude.
Voltage magnitude can be changed by
transformers provided with tap changing under
load (TCUL) .

Transformers specially designed to adjust voltage

magnitude or phase angle through small values
are called regulating transformers.
The presence of regulating transformers in lines
modifies the YBus matrix thereby modifying the
load flow solution.
Transmission line with regulating transformer
Consider a line, connecting two buses, having a
regulating transformer with off-nominal turns
(tap) ratio a included at one end as shown in
Figure below.

Since the transformer is assumed ideal, complex Similarly,

power output from it equals complex power input, i.e.

For transmission line,

Equations above can be written in matrix form

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Alternative method

where

π-network representation of an off-nominal

transformer Can be write as
and
For an off-nominal turns ratio transformer, a is
real, i.e. a' = a.

can be rewritten as

π-representation of a transmission line

Off-nominal transformers at both line ends

where
With off-nominal tap-setting transformers at each
end as shown in Figure below we have

or

Off-nominal transformers at both transmission line ends.

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POWER FLOW SOLUTION

SOLUTION STRATEGY FOR THE POWER FLOW EQUATIONS

Two methods are applied for power flow analysis.

These are the Gauss-Seidel method and the
Newton-Raphson method.
Application to the power flow problem.

- Newton-Raphson method
u k  J k x k
 x k  ( J 1 ) k  u k

POWER FLOW ANALYSIS: TWO BUS CASE

- The two-bus system selected to illustrate the solution

The vector x is frequently called the state vector of the
electric power system. The updated values of the system
state vector can be expressed as
procedure described in the preceding section is a simple one.
- The specific two-bus system to be analyzed here for power
flow along the transmission line is depicted in Fig. 5-5.
- Because ,there is a single generator bus, it is made the
slack bus, which means in turn that the bus 1 voltage and
phase angle are respectively 1 pu and 0°.
- The second bus is a load bus at which the demanded
real and reactive powers are specified.
- These quantities are identified as P2 =- 1.0 and Q2 = - 1.0
p.u.

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Example 1

Solution
The corresponding base quantities are then

and

The impedance of transmission line between buses 1 and 2

The reference base for this power system is assumed to

be 100MVA and 230 kV at the transmission level. Using
Newton-Raphson method in finding a solution for V2 and
δ2 so that these variables will satisfy for the value
specified.

Similarly, the transfer impedance between these buses is

The corresponding line admittance is then given as

The per unit value of each shunt capacitive susceptance

associated with the π equivalent circuit of the transmission
line is
the equation for real power at bus 2 as well as the
equation for reactive power at this bus we get

the self-admittance of the transmission line at either bus 1

or bus 2 can be represented by Note that we choose to use the lower-case letter for P
wherever we are preparing to perform an iteration procedure
in search of the quantities required on the right side that in
fact make the real power equal to the specified value.

Inserting the known values of V1 and δ1 then yields

we have two equations and two unknowns, the

resulting jacobian in this case will be a 2 x 2 square
matrix.
Because the jacobian is to be evaluated at each
iteration, it is useful to have the general expressions for By inserting the elements of Ybus we get the final forms of
these partial derivatives available. the power flow equations as they are used in the iteration
Accordingly, the appropriate partial differentiation of the procedure to obtain a solution
expressions for P2 and q2 yields the following,

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The process is begun by assuming all magnitudes of the

unknown bus voltages equal to unity and all the phase
angles equal to 0°.
Examination of the Assumed Solution, V2 = 1 and δ2 = 0°.To
check whether or not this solution works, we insert these
values into Eqs. power flow equations. Thus, we find

1st Iteration: the first corrected values of the unknown

variables are by

2nd Iteration: The second corrected values of the unknown

variables are now given by

Upon inserting these updated values into the power flow

equations, we find 3rd Iteration: The corrected values of the third iteration of
the unknown variables are now expressed as

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4th Iteration: The updated estimates of the solutions now
take on the values
With the solutions of V2 and δ2 now at the real power PR1
the
reactive power to be generated at bus 1 is identified as
the copper loss by the alternative procedure of taking the
product of the transmission line current squared and the line
resistance.
Figure show the Solution to a two-bus power flow problem
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In summary, then, the solution to the power flow problem
as formulated is given by the bus 2 voltage vector.
This conclusion is premised on the assumption that the
error of 0.5% present in the solution for the reactive power
is acceptable.
The current injected into the transmission line is given by
in this case the per-unit line resistance is
GAUSS-SEIDEL METHOD
Gauss-Seidel method of solving the power flow equations.
The inherent nonlinearity of these equations, however,
demands that the solution again be achieved by a process
of iteration on an appropriately modified form of the
equations.
The analysis begins by the second form which can be
written as
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PR1 PHAN RAVY, 3/8/2010

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A straightforward application of the instructions contained

on the right side of this last equation is called the Gauss
iteration method.
In the case of an n-bus transmission network yields the
following (n - 1) nonlinear algebraic equations with bus 1
taken as the slack bus.

use the Gauss-Seidel method to solve the problem in

example 1 to obtain the solution for the voltage and
angle at bus 2.
which on insertion of the parameter values becomes,

Solution
Solution The bus admittance matrix for this two-bus
transmission network is given by
Begin the iteration by assuming an initial value for bus 2
voltage of unity ( V 2 )0  10 o
The result of the first iteration is as follows.

1st iteration:
Moreover, the injected complex power at bus 2 is specified
as S2 = -1 - j. Hence,

POWER FLOW ANALYSIS: THREE-BUS CASE

2nd iteration:
Example2: The three-bus transmission network analyzed
in this section is depicted in Fig.5-7. Generating units are
tied to buses 1 and 3. Generator G1 is assumed to have a
V
2
 0.780513   7.974 o
rating of 300 MVA at 15kV. The rating of generator G3 is
2
250MVA at 15 kV.
3nd iteration:
The transmission line voltage is 230kV, and appropriate
transformers are assumed to be in place to provide the
transition from the generating level to the transmission
4nd iteration:
level. As is customary, the power flow analysis takes place
at the transmission level.
5nd iteration:
The base reference quantities are chosen to be: 100 MVA
and 230 kV.

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Writing the power flow equations. The three specified,
values of real and reactive power to be used in the solution
of the power flow equations are P2, P3, and Q2. these are
net quantities considered to be injected into the
transmission network at the buses.
Consider first bus 2. The complex power associated with the
RL circuit is 2.5 + j1.2 pu. Because the capacitor takes an
amount of reactive power given by - j2 pu
At bus 3:
inserting V1 = 1.0, V3 = 1.1, and δ1 = 0° as well as the
transmission line parameters as they appear in Ybus, these
equations can be expressed more explicitly as
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Solution
Solution by the Newton-Raphson method
Accordingly, the base quantities for impedance and
admittance are respectively
On this basis the p.u values of the admittances of the
transmission lines between the three buses are determined
to be per phase
Accordingly, the net complex power injected into the
transmission network at bus 2 is
At bus 2:
the solution by the Newton-Raphson method, it is necessary
next to obtain the jacobian matrix of partial derivatives.
The expressions for evaluating the elements of the first row
of this matrix are obtained by taking the partial derivative of
P2 with respect to each independent variable. Thus,
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Solution by the Newton-Raphson method.

We begin the solution process, as we did the two-bus case,
by assuming an initial solution where the unknown
independent voltage magnitudes are set equal to unity and
the unknown phase angles are set equal to 0°. Thus, the
initial unknown state vector is

1st Iteration

The new values of the elements of the state vector are

Inserting these values of the independent variables into the

power flow equations yields
Applying these corrections to the independent variables
yields the modified values which are to be used in the first
iteration.

The new value of the corrective vector that serves to move

the next iterative solution still closer to the actual values now
becomes

2nd Iteration

The corresponding element values of the jacobian are:

A check on the results follows upon substituting these
values into the power flow equations. We get

3rd iteration.

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Agreement with the specified values of P2, P3, and Q3 is so

close that we can now declare the values of the
independent variables displayed in the solutions to the
nonlinear power flow equations.

Evaluation of Dependent Quantities at Generator Buses.

A bus is considered to be a generator bus when ever
dependent quantities are to be determined. In
this three-bus case these dependent quantities are P1. Q1.
and Q3.
Entry of these independent variables into the power
flow equations yields the power flow equations.

Evaluation of bus-to-bus complex power flow.

As the last step of the power flow analysis, we compute the
level of complex power that appears at each bus on each
transmission line along the electric power system.

Bus. 1
By Kirchhoff’s current law the current that flows from bus
All the quantities on the right side of this equation are
1 into the transmission link between bus 1 and bus 2 is
known, the solution of the power flow equations are
given by
widely.
In this instance the results are found to be

Hence, the net injected complex power at bus 1 is

The current in the transmission link between buses 1
and 3 is found in the same way.
Bus 2
The current that flows from bus 2 to bus 1 is

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Similar the current flow from bus 2 to bus 3 is described by

Bus 3

The value of the net injected current at bus 2 readily

follows as the sum of I21 and I23, which is

GAUSS-SEIDEL METHOD

Power system is comprised of three types

of buses, namely slack bus, PQ buses and
PV buses. The net injected complex conjugate current at bus 3 is

The slack bus is numbered one, and the

remaining (NB - 1) buses may be PQ
buses or PV buses.

EXAMPLE 3
Figure below, the generators are connected at all the four
buses, while loads are at buses 2, 3, and 4.
The values of real and reactive powers are listed in Table All
buses other than slack are of PQ-type.
Find the voltages and the bus angles at the three buses
using the GS (Gauss Seidel) iteration.
Solution
Y-bus is calculated

Y11 =5.724138 - j12.310340

Y12 =Y21 =- 1.724138 + j4.310345

Y13 =Y31=0.0 + j 0.0

Y14 =Y41=- 4.0 + j8.0

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Set iteration counter, r =0

Y22 = 4.224138 – j11.810340

Y23 =Y32 =-2.5 + j7.5

Using Eq. (4),
Y24 =Y42= 0.0 + j 0.0

Y33 = 4.386792 – j14.103770

Y34 =Y43=- 1.88679+j6.603774

Y44 = 5.886792 – j14.603770

Assuming flat start (means set the voltage to -1 p.u. value)

V3 is

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If the convergence criterion is not satisfied, go for the next

iteration by incrementing the counter r, i.e. r =r + 1.
To start the new iteration, the following voltage values are
used in which the value of voltage V4 is the updated value.

The slack bus real and reactive powers are

computed using the following equation

The line flows result are in Table below

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