1

Forward/Backward Sweep Method Based on Map Structure for

Power Flow Calculation of Distribution System
Xu Jingzhou, and Chen Xiao

coding of forward/backward sweep method. Tests

Abstract Power flow calculation is very
important to distribution system management, and
more and more attention are paid to calculation
speed and accuracy due to the booming smart grids
which allow interconnection of distributed
generation of different kinds. A new
forward/backward sweep method based on map
structure is presented, which can calculate power
flow of all complex radial distribution systems.
Special coding of nodes, such as hierarchical coding,
is not necessary, and results can be obtained directly
through a global search of line map. Test shows that
the method is timesaving and insensitive to the
system scale, which helps the popularity of smart
grids.
show that this method is timesaving and
insensitive to the system scale, which can get
satisfying results and can be easily applied to
practice.
II. Problem Description
As shown in Figure 1, most distribution systems
are radial, which leads to the difference of load
flow calculation from the other parts of power
system.
i
0 1 2 k

IndexTerm Distribution system;

forward/backward sweep method; power flow
calculation
I. Introduction
Power flow calculation is very important to
distribution system analysis including its planning,
operational analysis, state estimation and network
reconfiguration, etc. Because of different
characteristic features of distribution networks,
such as radial structure and high R/X ratio,
distribution system load flow analysis differs
significantly from transmission systems.
Accordingly, a number of methods are specially
designed for the solution of the power flow
problem on radial distribution systems, most of
which are based on the forward/backward sweep
method [1]-[10].
Although these methods are reliably convergent,
they must comply with some special rules like
hierarchical coding, and sometimes Jacobian
matrix or additional zero impedance branches are
needed, which makes programming and applying
very difficult. In this paper, a new system
expression based on map structure is provided,
which simplifies the calculation process and nodal
Xu Jingzhou works at Nanjing Power Engineering Design
Company, Ltd, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210009 China (e-mail:
chefxu@hotmail.com).
Chen xiao works at Nanjing Power Supply Company,
Nanjing, Jiangsu Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210008,
mail:lettuce81@163.com).
Figure 1 Radial distribution system connected with
distributed generation
Firstly, distribution network matrices are
generally ill-conditioned, that is, bus admittance
matrix is very sparse because branches are always
less than nodes in radial distribution system.
Secondly, due to high R/X ratio, fast decoupling
method can not be applied.
Thirdly, since power of the line connected with
the endpoint node is just the nodal power, power
loss and voltage loss can be resolved directly if the
endpoint node voltage is given, so sweep-based
method can be adopted to calculate system state
variables in sequence.
Branch current and branch power can be both
used as iterative variables, according to which
forward/backward sweep method is a little
deferent [10], and branch power is preferred in
this paper.
III. Proposed Methodology
Conventional forward/backward sweep methods
are not easily applied and popularized due to weak
correlation of data which leads to complex
computational logic. Aiming at this problem, map
structure is adopted in this paper, based on which
coding and calculating becomes very easy for each
iterative step just needs to traverse all lines once.
(e-
A Data processing
 2

Map container allocates each node a unique U li _ f = 1.0

index having no use for hierarchical classification
of network, which endows this storage measure U li _ b = 1.0
with high searching efficiency.
Firstly, let us consider the distribution system as
Pli _ f = 0
Items Parameters included Qli _ b = 0
BB
System System Is parameter normalized 1
reference reference
voltage rate
Step 2. Equation 2 shows the forward sweep for
Lines Lines tail- Resistance Impedance front-end power flow of lines, which is based on
LI front-end end node of line of line line map.
node index
index Pli _ f = Pli _ b + Pli
Access Load real Load reactive power
LP Point of power Qli _ f = Qli _ b + Qli
load or
DG 2
given in Figure 1, and input system elements data
as shown in Table 1. P Q
Where li _ f and li _ f stand for real and
Table 1 Data inputting formula
reactive power from the front-end of line i
Where BB, LI and LP stand for data of bus, line
and load respectively. P Q
respectively, and as the same, li _ b and li _ b
Since conventional calculation methods are stand for real power and reactive power integrated
required to distinguish between main lines and to the tail-end of the line, summing up front-end
branch lines, nodal data need to be pre-processed real and reactive power of all lines connected with
specially in order to get hierachical data structure.
li and P Qli
As shown in Table 1, method proposed in this end-point of line i . Moreover,
paper indexes all nodes without taking stand for real and reactive line loss. So
consideration of the deference of lines. Pli _ b Qli _ b Pli Qli can be written as
Secondly, component connectivity is created , , and
according to inputting data, forming component
map including bus map, line map, load map and Pli _ b = Plj _ f + Pldi
node map. Each element map records all the ip j

Qli _ b = Qlj _ f + Qldi

homogeneous elements with a unique index and
data information, and besides, node map is
adopted to stores the connectivity information of ip j ip j
all nodes. In this case, the whole system can be 3
configured through traversing the line map.
During backward sweep, tail-end power of a line, Where i p j stands for all lines connected with
i.e. line i, can be figured up through searching the endpoint of line i.
front-end node of the line, power of tail-end node
can be figured up just through traversing all lines
( Pli _ b + Qli _ b ) * R
2 2
front-end node .
Pli = 2
B Calculation procedure U li _ b
The method proposed in this paper neednt ( Pli _ b + Qli _ b ) * X
2 2
distinguish main lines from branch lines, which Qli = 2
can be demonstrated by the following calculation U li _ b
procedure.
4
Step 1. Parameters need initializing if elements
data havent been referred, and at the same time,
Step 3. Backward sweep for end-point voltage of
bus voltage with voltage and power of lines both
line is shown as equation 5. Because the
ends is assumed as follow.
quadrature component of voltage is too little to
reckon in, direct-axis component is considered
only.
 3

P R+Q X
li _ f li _ f
U =U
li _ b li _ f U
li _ f
5

The end-point voltage obtained is assigned to the

front-end voltage of lines which are connected
with the end-point of line i.
Figure 3 69-Bus system
U lj _ f = U li _ b ip j Parts of the calculation results are shown in
Table 2.
Step 4. Convergence criterion is written as Table 2 Calculation results of voltage and line loss
equation 6. Nodal Branch
Voltage Line loss
number number
( k +1) ( k +1) ( k +1)
Max( Pli _ f Pli _ f , Qli _ f Qli _ f , U li _ b U li _ b )<
(k ) (k ) (k )
1 0.99997 1 0.074878
2 0.99993 2 0.074878
6 4 0.99984 4 0.194833
Step 5. Calculation procedure concludes if 8 0.97857 8 6.895699
convergence criterion is satisfied, otherwise, turn
9 0.97744 9 3.375672
to step 2 and keep iterating.
The programming logic is very simple which 11 0.97134 11 1.015048
can be seen from the calculation procedure above, 12 0.96818 12 2.192752
because a whole procedure of sweep just traverse
27 0.95632 27 0.000349
line map once, and during the course of each step
the calculation is the same for all the lines without 28 0.99993 28 0.000349
consideration of the deference between branch 35 0.99895 35 0.000479
lines and main lines.
36 0.99979 36 0.023283
C Calculation Process Flow Chart
The calculation process flow chart is shown as 39 0.99415 39 0.115903
figure 2 according to the calculation procedure 41 0.97853 41 0.000044
listed above. 42 0.97465 42 5.781278
a
t
a
n
p
u
t
il
t
n
g

D I
a
n
d
o
r
m
o
i
z
e
d

54 0.90915 54 0.041217
r
e
a
t
ef
t
h
eo
o
n
ee
n
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

C C
o
m
p
o
n
n
t
s

C
55 0.97128 55 0.002622
Data Initialized

Iteration Count 57 0.96785 57 0.023324

k=0

Backward Sweep
59 0.99992 59 0.001409
for End-point
Power Flow of
Lines 69 0.9984 69 0.000012
The results listed in Table 2 are the same as that
Y

Forward Sweep
for Front-end
Power Flow of
k
=
k
+
1

Lines in document [11]. The calculation procedure takes

0.028 seconds with 4 times iteration when
Y

E
n
d
P
r
i
n
t
R
e
s
u
l
t
s

Convergence
Criterion Is
Satisfied? calculation convergent precision is set at 1e-10.
N

Nodal voltage results are shown in figure 4.

N

N
o
t
C
o
n
v
e
r
g
e
n
t

Maximun
Iteration Count?

Figure 2 calculation process flow chart 1.02

1
IV. Case Study 0.98
A real 69-bus system in PG&E Power Supply 0.96
Company is quoted here, which is shown in figure 0.94
3. And the test condition for this system is the 0.92
same as that in document [11]. 0.9
1 11 21

Figure 4 Power flow calculation result - nodal voltage

 4

V. Conclusion
The method presented in this paper gets an
advantage of conventional ones with simple logic
and friendly programming for iteration just
traverses line map once, which is timesaving and
insensitive to the system scale and can be easily
put into practice. Based on this model, further
study is easily carried on, such as taking into
consideration of deferent load models and impact
assessment of distributed generation (DG) on
distribution system, etc. And in sequence, DG
optimization can be obtained through choosing
proper DG models, which helps the popularity of
smart grids.
Biographies
Xu Jing-zhou 1981.1-received B.S. degree in
electrical engineering from Shanghai Institute of
Electrical Power, M.S. degree and Ph.D. degree from
Southeast University. He is currently working at
Nanjing Power Supply Company. His work mainly
includes power engineering design and power system
plan.
Chen Xiao 1981.5-received B.S. degree and
M.S. degree from Southeast University. She is currently
working at Nanjing Power Supply Company. Her work
mainly includes power system operation and its dispatch.

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