1238 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 17, NO.

4, NOVEMBER 2002
A Novel and Fast Three-Phase Load Flow for
Unbalanced Radial Distribution Systems
Jen-Hao Teng, Member, IEEE, and Chuo-Yean Chang
AbstractA novel and fast three-phase load flow algorithm for
unbalanced radial distribution systems is proposed in this paper.
The proposed method uses branch voltages as state variables and
employs the NewtonRaphson (NR) algorithm to solve the load
flow problem. By utilizing branch voltages as state variables, a
constant Jacobian matrix can be obtained, and a building algo-
rithm for Jacobian matrix is then developed from the observation
of the constant Jacobian matrix. A solution technique, which takes
the network structure into account to avoid the time-consuming
lower and upper triangular (LU) factorization, is also developed.
Since the factorization procedure can be avoided, the proposed
method can save computation time. For any power system equip-
ment, if its equivalent current injection or admittance matrix can
be obtained, it can be integrated into the proposed method. Test
results demonstrate that by integrating the Jacobian building al-
gorithm and efficient solution technique, the proposed method is
an effective three-phase load flow method and has great potential
for real-time use.
Index TermsBranch voltage, current injection mismatches,
NewtonRaphson method, three-phase load flow, unbalanced
distribution system.
I. INTRODUCTION
T
HELOADflowalgorithmis used to determine the voltages
and line flows for a large-scale power system from a
given load and generation data. It is a very important and
fundamental tool for the analysis of power systems and is used in
operational as well as planning stages. The single-phase power
flow methods are normally used in the systems that unbalances
can be neglected. In distribution systems, however, the three-
phase balanced hypothesis cannot be applied. Therefore, a
three-phase load flow algorithm with complete three-phase
models is required for these cases. Additionally, it is important
to solve the load flow problem as efficiently as possible since
certain applications, particularly in distribution automation and
optimization, require the solution of the load flow problem
repeatedly [1], [2].
Several load flow algorithms specially designed for distri-
bution systems have been proposed in the literature [3][11].
Those formulations can be divided into two categories. The first
category [3][6] was based on the general topology of a distribu-
tion system and used the bus voltages as state variables to solve
Manuscript received February 5, 2002; revised May 10, 2002. This work
was supported by National Science Council of Taiwan under Grant NSC
89-2213-E-214-016.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, I-Shou Uni-
versity, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2002.805012
the load flow problem. In this category, the most time-honored
load flow method is the Gauss implicit Z-Bus method [4], [5].
This method has been implemented in many power companies
and utilized by numerous applications. A fast-decoupled algo-
rithm used the rectangular-form voltages as state variables and
the NewtonRaphson (NR) algorithm, which was developed to
improve the execution time of the three-phase load flow, was
proposed in [6].
The second category was based on the special network
structures of distribution systems [7][9]. In [7], the author
proposed a compensation-based technique for weakly meshed
distribution networks. The radial parts are solved by a two-step
procedure in which the branch currents are first calculated
(backward sweep), and then, the bus voltages are updated (for-
ward sweep). Branch power flows rather than branch currents
were later used in the improved version and presented in [8].
Extension of the method, with the emphasis on modeling unbal-
anced loads and dispersed generations, was presented in [9].
One of the main disadvantages of the compensation-based
methods is that in addition to the conventional bus-branch
oriented data format, new data bases have to be built and
maintained for these methods. Since the feeder-lateral based
model is adopted, the layer-lateral based data format is re-
quired. In addition, the relationship between the system status
and control variables cannot be expressed as a mathematical
expression, which makes the applications of the compensa-
tion-based algorithm difficult.
The algorithm proposed in this paper is a novel but classic
technique. The proposed method is classic since its input data is
the same as the conventional bus-branch oriented data used by
most utilities. The proposed method is also novel since it takes
advantage of the topological characteristics of distribution sys-
tems and solves the distribution load flow efficiently. The pro-
posed method is based on the NR formulation and utilizes the
branch voltage as state variables. By using those ideas, a con-
stant Jacobian matrix can be developed, and the traditional NR
technique can be utilized to find the solution. Test results show
that the proposed method is robust and very efficient compared
with the conventional methods.
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
Fig. 1 shows a three-phase line section between bus and .
A 4 4 matrix, which takes into account the self and mutual
coupling effects, can be expressed as (1). After Krons reduction
is applied, the matrix dimension will reduce to 3 3, whereas
0885-8950/02$17.00 2002 IEEE
TENG AND CHANG: NOVEL AND FAST THREE-PHASE LOAD FLOW 1239
the effects of the neutral or ground wire are still included in this
model, as shown in (2).
(1)
(2)
For any phase failed to present, the corresponding row and
column in this matrix will contain null-entries.
The relationships between bus voltages and branch currents
as shown in Fig. 1 can be expressed as
(3)
Equation (3) can be rewritten as
(4a)
or
(4b)
where and are
the branch voltages and branch currents between bus and ,
respectively. is the admittance matrix of a three-phase
line section between bus and and can be obtained by inversing
.
Then, for a distribution network as shown in Fig. 2, the re-
lationships between branch voltages and bus current injections
for bus can be expressed as
(5)
The relationships for other buses can be obtained similarly.
From (5), it can be seen that a bus current injection can be
expressed as a function of the branch admittance matrices and
branch voltage vectors. The current-injection equations in the
branch-voltage form can be expressed as
(6)
where is the set of branches connected to bus . is the bus
number.
Since the current injections can be expressed as functions of
the branch voltages and line parameters, it provides a possibility
to use branch voltages as state variables and to solve the load
flow problem.
Fig. 1. Three-phase line section.
Fig. 2. Diagram of a distribution network.
III. FORMULATION DEVELOPMENTS
At each bus , the complex load is specified by
(7)
and the corresponding specified current injection at the th iter-
ation is
(8)
where
spec
and are the specified current injection and
voltage of bus at the -th iteration of the solution procedure.
The current injection mismatch (CIM) equations are
spec
(9)
Combining the CIM equations and NR algorithm, the proposed
novel algorithm can be developed.
Taylors series expansions for the mismatch functions are the
basis for the NR method of solving the power flow problem. By
using branch voltages as state variables, the complex Jacobian
matrix and mismatch equation can be obtained as
(10a)
(10b)
1240 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 17, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2002
where is the vector of branch voltages, and is the
correction vector of branch voltages.
By differentiating (9) with respect to the branch voltages, the
Jacobian matrix can be obtained. Using the line admittance ma-
trix as the building-block matrix, i.e., 3 3 matrix for a three-
phase line section, 2 2 matrix for a double-phase line section,
and 1 1 matrix for a single-phase line section, the Jacobian
matrix can be built according to the following rules.
Jacobian Matrix Building Algorithm: If branch is not con-
nected to bus , the building-block matrix will be a zero matrix.
If the direction of the current in branch is away from bus
, the building-block matrix will be for a three-phase
line section, , , or for a double-phase line
section, and , , or for a single-phase line
section.
If the direction of the current in branch is toward bus ,
the building-block matrix will be for a three-phase line
section, , , or for a double-phase line section,
and , , or for a single-phase line section.
A simple eight-bus system (equivalent 13-bus system)
including the three-phase, double-phase, and single-phase line
sections and buses as shown in Fig. 3 is used as an example.
The nonzero terms of the Jacobian matrix can be expressed as
(11), shown at the bottom of the page; it can then be rewritten
by block-matrix expressions as
The substation bus (swing bus) will not be in the Jacobian
matrix since power or current injections are not scheduled.
Due to the radial structure of distribution systems, the Jacobian
matrix with block-matrix expressions will be an upper triangular
matrix. This kind of special matrix expression can be solved by
traditional triangular factorization; however, using the proposed
technique shown in the following section can save even more
computation resources. From the building algorithm and simple
example shown above, the proposed method does not need
extra data format; only the conventional bus-branch oriented
data are required for the Jacobian matrix building.
IV. SOLUTION TECHNIQUES
The Jacobian matrix, which is an upper triangular matrix
with block-matrix expressions, can be decomposed into two
matrices, that is
(13)
where is a matrix composed of identity matrices, and
is a diagonal block matrix composed of the admittance matrix
of distribution equipment.
Using (12) as an example, the corresponding and
matrices can be expressed as
TENG AND CHANG: NOVEL AND FAST THREE-PHASE LOAD FLOW 1241
Fig. 3. Eight-bus distribution system.
and
Then, (10) can be rewritten as
(16)
Setting , (16) becomes
(17)
Since is a upper triangular matrix, (17) can be solved by
a backward substitution algorithm. Then, due to the diagonal
structure of , the can be easily obtained, and the
branch voltages can be expressed as
(18)
Note that the structure of matrix is the same as that of ma-
trix ; therefore, it can be obtained easily by the Jacobian ma-
trix building algorithm. From the matrix, some important
information such as the relationships between branch currents
and bus voltages, and the relationships between branch voltages
and bus voltages, can be obtained. From the observation of row
1 in (15), it can be seen that the voltage of bus 2 can be obtained
from the currents of branches 1, 2, 3, and 6. From the obser-
vation of column 3 in (15), it can be seen that the voltage of
branch 3 can be calculated from the voltage of busses 2 and 4.
The relationships between branch voltages and bus voltages can
be expressed as
(19)
where is the vector of bus voltages.
The voltages of substation are fixed and can be considered
as constants. Since is a lower triangular matrix, the bus
voltages can be updated easily. Solve (16)(19) iteratively until
the CIM values are all less than a chosen convergence tolerance,
and then, the proposed load flow solution can be obtained.
According to the research, the arithmetic operation number of
lower and upper triangular (LU) factorization is approximately
proportional to . For large value of , the LU factorization
will occupy a large portion of the computational time. Therefore,
if the LUfactorization can be avoided, the load flowmethod can
save tremendous computational resources. From the solution
technique stated above, it can be seen that the LU factorization
procedure, which is the most time-consuming procedure for the
traditional load flow methods, is not necessary for the proposed
method. The omission of LU factorization procedure further
improves the stability of the proposed method since it can
prevent the ill-conditioned problems of matrix factorization due
to the network topology and line parameters. The advantages
of the proposed method can be summarized as follows.
1) The network topology characteristics of distribution sys-
tems are successfullyintegratedintothe proposedmethod;
2) The LU factorization procedure is not necessary; there-
fore, the proposed method will be a fast load flowmethod;
3) The nonzero terms of the Jacobian matrix can be treated
in a comprehensive matter, as shown in (14) and (15).
4) No special data format is required for the proposed
method; only the conventional bus-branch oriented data
are enough.
V. EQUIPMENT MODEL
Adjustments made to the existing distribution equipment
models are shown in the following sections. The existing
distribution equipment modeled as an equivalent matrix or an
equivalent current injection can be integrated into the proposed
algorithm directly.
Transformer Model: A three-phase transformer can be mod-
eled as the equivalent admittance matrix and core loss block, as
shown in Fig. 4 [5]. The core loss block is a function of voltage
on the secondary side of the transformer. Various types of trans-
former connections, including grounded wye to grounded wye,
ungrounded wye to delta, grounded wye to delta, and so forth,
are investigated in this research. From Fig. 4, it can be seen that
the proposed method can easily integrate transformer by finding
the admittance matrix of the transformer, and then, the trans-
former can be handled just like a distribution line.
Capacitor Model: Capacitors are modeled as wye-con-
nected or delta-connected constant admittance in this paper.
For example, the equivalent current injection of ground
wye-connection capacitors can be expressed as
(20)
where is the capacitor admittance at bus .
Co-Generator Model: There are two typical co-generator
models in distribution system analysis. The first one is the wye-
or delta-connected constant power model. The other method
models the inherent generator phase imbalance according to the
distribution system imbalance [5]. The method proposed in [5]
is used in this paper to model the co-generator in sufficiently
detail.
1242 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 17, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2002
Fig. 4. Equivalent model of a three-phase transformer.
Load Model: Loads are modeled as wye-connected or delta-
connected constant power or impedance. For constant power,
the equivalent current injection is obtained by (8). The equiva-
lent current injection of the constant impedance can be obtained
as
(21)
where is the constant impedance at bus .
Voltage Regulator Model: Voltage regulator is used to con-
trol the voltage in an amount up to 5 or 10%. In this paper,
the voltage regulator can be modeled as series impedance and
a transformer with tap on the secondary winding. That is, the
voltage regulator is treated as a three-phase transformer.
From the above description, the proposed method can in-
tegrate the distribution equipment easily. The only required
procedure is to find the admittance matrix or the equivalent
current injection of distribution equipment. Therefore, the pro-
posed algorithm can be integrated into the existent distribution
automation applications easily.
VI. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The proposed three-phase load flow method was imple-
mented by Borland C++ language and tested on a Windows
98-based Pentium II (350) PC. Two methods are used for tests
and comparisons. The convergence tolerance is 0.001 p.u. for
all test cases.
Method 1: the Gauss implicit Z-Bus method as reported in
[4];
Method 2: the proposed algorithm.
Performance Test: Three three-phase IEEE test feeders,
as reported by [10], which are 13, 37, and 123 bus, are used
for test. The feeders have features that will be predominantly
three-phase lateral with unbalanced loads. The execution time
and number of iterations of these two methods are shown in
Table I. From Table I, it can be seen that Method 2 outperforms
Method 1, especially for large-scale distribution systems. The
main reason is that the time-consuming LU factorization is not
necessary for Method 2. Moreover, the results in Table I show
that the number of iterations for Method 2 is stable. Method 2
is definitely a robust algorithm.
Since the Jacobian matrix formed by the proposed method
is quite sparse, the general sparsity technique can be integrated
into the proposed method. The results are also compared with
TABLE I
EXECUTION TIME AND NUMBER OF ITERATIONS
the method proposed in [9]. For IEEE 123-bus test system, the
execution time for the proposed method and the forward-back-
ward sweep method are 0.0231 and 0.0219, respectively. The
data formatting time was not included in the forward-backward
sweep method. From our test results, the execution time of these
two methods is comparable.
Equipment Test: In order to make sure that the transformer
models can be effectively integrated into the proposed method.
The IEEE four-node test feeder as proposed in [11] and [12] is
used for testing. The balanced and unbalanced loading, step-up
and step-down transformers, and different transformer connec-
tions are all tested by the proposed method to demonstrate the
usability of the proposed method. However, due to the lim-
ited space, only the test cases of the step-up transformer are
shown here. Tables II and III show the step-up transformer with
balanced and unbalanced loading, respectively. Y, YG, and D
shown in Tables II and III mean the wye, grounded wye, and
delta connections, respectively. For comparison, the data format
in Tables II and III are shown as those reported in [12]. Truly, the
rigorous transformer models can sometimes make the load flow
programs converge difficultly. One of the reasons is the standard
30 connections for wye-delta and delta-wye banks, which puts
the final converged voltage solutions far away from the initial
guess voltages. In order to improve this convergence problem,
initial voltage angle adjustments are given for bus voltages. For
example, if a bus is behind a wye-delta connection transformer,
then 30 are added for the bus voltage angles. It means that
the voltage angles of phase , , and are 30, 150 and 90 ,
respectively. The convergence characteristic can be effectively
improved by this voltage angle adjustment method.
The maximum differences of bus voltages and angles
between our solutions and the solutions of [12] are less than
100 V and 0.5 , respectively. For the step-up test system with
the voltage base of 24.9 kV at the high voltage side, the voltage
differences are less than 0.004 p.u.; therefore, the solutions of
these two methods are very close. One of the possible reasons
for the differences between those solutions is that different
transformer models are used in the proposed method and [12].
A 3 10 bus system with three transformers, as shown in
Fig. 5, is also used for the equipment test. The TR1, TR2, and
TR3 are delta-grounded wye connection, wye-wye connection,
and grounded wye-delta connection transformers, respectively.
Two cases are used for co-generator and capacitor tests. Case
A is tested with a co-generator added to bus 9. Case B is tested
with a co-generator added to bus 9, and two capacitors are added
to busses 6 and 10. Fig. 6 shows the bus voltages of phase A for
these two cases. From Fig. 6, it can be seen that the bus voltages
are lower than 0.96 p.u. in bus 6 and 10 for Case A. However,
TENG AND CHANG: NOVEL AND FAST THREE-PHASE LOAD FLOW 1243
TABLE II
STEP-UP TRANSFORMER TEST WITH BALANCED LOADING
TABLE III
STEP-UP TRANSFORMER TEST WITH UNBALANCED LOADING
with the capacitors, the bus voltages are shifted to 0.98 in both
busses 6 and 10 for Case B. The detailed test results will take
up too much space and are not able be fully covered in this
paper. However, it can be concluded that if its equivalent current
injection or admittance matrix can be obtained, the equipment
can be easily integrated into the proposed method.
Fig. 5. Ten-bus system.
Fig. 6. Bus voltage of phase A for equipment test.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a novel and fast approach for distribution load
flow was proposed. The new formulation uses the Jacobian ma-
trix building algorithm to form the Jacobian matrix and utilizes
an improved solution technique to obtain the load flow solu-
tion. The time-consuming procedures, such as LU factorization
of the Jacobian matrix, are not necessary, and the ill-conditioned
numerical problem occuring at the factorization of the Jaco-
bian matrix does not exist in the proposed solution procedure.
Therefore, the proposed method is robust and fast. In addition,
the proposed method can easily integrate the distribution equip-
ment model. Modifications of the Jacobian building algorithm
and the solution procedure are both not required. Test results
show that the proposed method is especially suitable for power
flowcalculation in large-scale distribution systems. The detailed
comparisons of the proposed method with the other commonly
used load flow methods and the integration of other equipment
models such as those proposed in [13] into the proposed method
will be discussed in future works.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Prof. W. H. Kersting for
his useful comments in the transformer tests of the proposed
method.
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Jen-Hao Teng (M97) was born in 1969 in Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C. He received
the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering fromthe National Sun
Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 1991, 1993, and 1996, respectively.
He has been with the I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, since 1998. His
current research interests are distribution automation, power system deregula-
tion, and power quality.
Chuo-Yean Chang received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the
National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1987. Cur-
rently, he is pursuing the Ph.D. degree in the I-Shou University, Kaohsiung.
His current research interests are power quality and harmonic filter design.