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Real Power Losses Reduction and Loading Margin Improvement via Continuation Method
F. C. V. Malange, D. A. Alves, L. C. P. da Silva, C. A. Castro, and G. R. M. da Costa

AbstractThis letter presents an alternative approach for reducing the total real power losses by using a continuation method. Results for two simple test systems and for the IEEE 57-bus system show that this procedure results in larger voltage stability margin. Besides, the reduction of real power losses obtained with this procedure leads to significant money savings and, simultaneously, to voltage profile improvement. Comparison between the solution of an optimal power flow and the proposed method shows that the latter can provide near optimal results and so, it can be a reasonable alternative to power system voltage stability enhancement. Index TermsContinuation method, voltage stability margin.

I. INTRODUCTION

is represented by , where is the vector of the is the vector of voltage angles of PQ and PV buses and PQ buses voltage magnitudes. The proposed method aims to reduce real power losses by using a CPF. So, two equations are : (a) the reactive power generated added to PF equation set and (b) the total real power losses of at a chosen bus . at bus , and its respective generator the system terminal voltage, , are considered as a dependent and control and variables, respectively. The respective changes in the values will be considered through the variables and . Then, the changes are proportional to their respective base case and . The new equation set is given by values,

N power systems static voltage stability analysis, the computation of the maximum loading point (MLP) is important to stability margin determination and modal analysis application [1]. The conventional power-flow (PF) method is inadequate to obtain the MLP because the Jacobian matrix is singular at that point. Continuation power flow (CPF) methods overcome the Jacobian singularity problem through different parameterization techniques. It can be considered as an improvement of the conventional PF, once it can be used not only to obtain a single feasible PF solution, but also to trace solution trajectories, being an important tool for voltage collapse and security analyses. This letter presents a new approach, based on continuation methods, for improving voltage stability margin by reducing real power losses. II. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY

(1) is the load reactive power demand specified at bus . where Considering , , and as variables, the number of unknowns in (1) is larger than the number of equations. However, is regarded as an independent variable (it is chosen as continuation and are comparameter), that is, its value is preset, and puted for a specified and treated as dependent variables. In this case, the number of unknowns is equal to the number of equations and, while the system of equations is linearly independent, the necessary condition for solvability is attained. Presetting the value of corresponds to the modified zero-order polynomial predictor of continuation method [3]. This predictor is based on the current solution and a fixed decrement (intends to reduce ) in the parameter as an estimate for the next solution. the After the base case solution ( , ) has been found by a PF and a step size is defined for , the CPF is used to compute further solutions until a minimum losses point (MiLP) is reached. So, using (1), it is possible to specify the desired amount of change in the real power losses, and its solution provides the operating corresponds to the point for which these losses occur. (the voltage specified at base case solution where . Then, expanding (1) in Taylor series up base case) and to the first-order terms, considering the preset value of yields

In the optimal power flow (OPF) formulation, the generator terminal voltages, among others, are considered as control variables. Their values are adjusted by an optimization algorithm to minimize an objective function, while satisfying some system conditions in the form of equality (PF equations) and inequality (maximum and minimum variables or function limits) constraints [2]. On the other hand, the PF does not automatically minimize any objective function. So, a trial-and-error procedure must be carried out to optimize some desired criteria out of a potentially very large set of feasible solutions. In the formulation of the PF problem, the basic set of equations
Manuscript received April 30, 2003. D. A. Alves and F. C. V. Malange are with Department of Electrical Engineering, Paulista State University-FEIS-UNESP, 15385-000, SP, Brazil (e-mail: dalves@dee.feis.unesp.br; malange@dee.feis.unesp.br). L. C. P. da Silva and C. A. Castro are with State University of Campinas-UNICAMP, Campinas, 13080-970, SP, Brazil (e-mail: lui@dsce.fee.unicamp.br; ccastro@ieee.org). G. R. M. da Costa is with State University of So Paulo-USP, So Carlos, 13560-970, SP, Brazil (e-mail: geraldo@sel.eesc.sc.usp.br). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2003.821633

(2) where denotes the respective function mismatches of (1). It should be noted that the mismatches are equal to zero in the base

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TABLE I OPF SOLUTIONS FOR THE TWO-BUS TEST SYSTEM

Fig. 2. CPF performance for the three-bus test system. TABLE II OPF AND CPF SOLUTIONS FOR THE THREE-BUS TEST SYSTEM

Fig. 1.

CPF performance for the two-bus test system.

case PF solution. So, only to the change of .

will be different from zero due

III. TEST RESULTS The objectives are to point out the effect of rescheduling the control variables to reduce the total real power losses, as well as its effects on voltage stability margin and voltage profile. The and the tap in mismatch convergence threshold is the on load-tap changing transformers is fixed. Generator real power injections are fixed on the base case PF solution, except for the slack bus. Its real power injection is allowed to vary in order to absorb eventual reductions on system losses. Table I presents the test results for a two-bus (a slack bus 1, and a PV bus 2) test system, considering several maximum values of , obtained with the graphical analysis presented in [4] and an OPF program. Fig. 1 shows the proposed CPF performance Starting from two different known initial for points obtained by a PF solution, the next points (A starting with , or starting with ) are obthrough changing . The value adopted tained by changing for is 0.1 (i.e., is reduced by 0.1 MW). The actual next point is computed by (2). This procedure is repeated until the CPF fails to converge. At this point, either the solution can be traversed backward with a smaller step size (e.g., 0.1 MW/10) if one needs to calculate MiLP more accurately, or the point is considered as the MiLP. Practically the same values presented in Table I are obtained by the proposed CPF. Fig. 2 shows the performance of the proposed CPF on the simple three-bus test system presented in [2]. The permissible (slack bus) and (PV bus) values adopted for voltages and are: Two situations are tested for this system. First, it is considered that (i.e., only and are taken into account). The curve tracing procedure is similar to that used for Fig. 1, starting are considered in with equal to 1.0. Then, , , and the process. Therefore, the equations of both generated reactive and , and the total real power losses are considpower, is used to change both generated reactive ered in this case. powers so that values are proportional to their respective base and . The procedure for accounting for case values

Fig. 3. (a) Voltage profiles and (b) initial and final PV curves for the IEEE 57-bus system.

Q-limit at PV bus is the same as in the PF method. Additionally, if one of the limits on at any PV bus has been reached, its reof the referred spective value is set to that limit. In case the PV bus is within the prescribe limits, it is treated as a simple ). In case that a PV bus PV bus (i.e., it is not used to reduce and the limits, it is switched violates both the prescribe and set to their respective limits. As to PQ bus with its shown in Fig. 2 and Table II, both approaches led to practically the same final results provided by the OPF program. The application of an approach similar to the second situation described above, on the IEEE 57-bus system, leads to a loss reduction of 14.57% (4.01 MW), with a consequent increase in money savings. These savings can be obtained simultaneously with the improvement of the voltage profile, as shown in Fig. 3(a), that shows the voltage profiles corresponding to base case PF, and to CPF and OPF methods. Initial and final PV curves (after the last iteration of the proposed total real power losses reduction methodology) are shown in Fig. 3(b), and confirm the margin improvement. The method leads to a margin improvement of 18%, which is significant, since there is no modification on generators active power injections. IV. CONCLUSION Our study results on the proposed CPF show the following advantages: a) its solutions are close to the optimal solutions; b)

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savings in real power loss can be achieved; and c) voltage profiles and stability margin are improved. It is also demonstrated that approximate solutions based on continuation methods is a reasonable alternative to produce near optimal results. REFERENCES
[1] P. Kundur, Power System Stability and Control. New York: McGrawHill, 1993. [2] H. W. Dommel and W. F. Tinney, Optimal power flow solutions, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-87, pp. 18661876, Oct. 1968. [3] H. D. Chiang, A. J. Flueck, K. S. Shah, and N. Balu, CPFLOW: A practical tool for tracing power systems steady-state stationary behavior due to load and generation variations, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 10, pp. 623633, May 1995.

[4] D. A. Alves and G. R. M da Costa, An analytical solution to the optimal power flow, IEEE Power Eng. Rev., vol. 22, pp. 4951, Mar. 2002.