Topological and Primitive Impedance based Load Flow Method for Radial and Weakly Meshed Distribution Systems

Abstract

In this paper, an effective topological and primitive impedance based distribution power flow algorithm is developed for both balanced and unbalanced distribution systems. This method fully exploits the radial structure of the network and solves the distribution load flow directly. Using this concept and primitive impedances of the lines, only diagonal elements of the Distribution Load Flow (DLF) matrix are computed and stored in single dimension vectors to obtain the distribution load flow solution. Unlike other traditional methods, the proposed approach does not require any LU decomposition or Bus admittance matrix. It is robust, time-efficient and needs very less memory for any size of the distribution system. The proposed method is tested on a unbalanced practical Indian distribution system and also on various standard IEEE test systems including weakly meshed distribution system. Results are quite promising and the method has great potential application in the distribution automation.