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2023 5th International Conference on Energy Systems and Electrical Power IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2584 (2023) 012146 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2584/1/012146

Investigation about Power Flow Algorithm for Distribution

Network with Distributed Photovoltaic

Haofei Chena*, Jun Hana, Xingwei Jiangb, Yuming Zhoub, Dawei Dingb, Anjie
Fana and Chao Caia
a. State Grid Jiangsu Economic Research Institute, Nanjing, China; b. State Grid
Jiangsu Electric Power Co. Ltd., Huai'an Power Supply Branch, Huai'an, China
*Corresponding author e-mail: 281330423@qq.com

Abstract. To obtain the practical power flow algorithm for distribution network with distributed
photovoltaic (PV), the change in phase and amplitude of calculated node voltage with number
of iterations, and computation time of the Newton-Raphson algorithm, back/forward sweep
algorithm and implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm are obtained for 5-node circular distribution
network with distributed photovoltaic. The results show that the Newton-Raphson algorithm can
not converge and can not be used in the circular distribution network with PV. Both back/forward
sweep algorithm and implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm can converge and their results are
consistent, but the computation time of the latter is almost 1/3 of the former. The latter is
recommended for power flow calculation for annular distribution network with distributed PV.

1. Introduction
The renewable energy sources mainly including distributed photovoltaic are more and more widely used
in the distribution network. Power flow calculation forms the basis of power system security and
economic analysis. Distributed photovoltaic will introduce new problems to power flow calculation,
making it difficult to apply the traditional power flow algorithm in the power system with distributed
photovoltaic (PV) [1]. Therefore, it needs to be further studied.
For early small-scale power systems, power flow calculation is mainly completed by professional
manual calculation. Later, computers are gradually used for power flow calculation. In the early stage,
the method based on nodal admittance matrix is mainly used, but the convergence of this method is poor.
In order to improve the convergence, the Newton-Raphson algorithm [2-3] is proposed. In this method,
the relative equations are expanded according to Taylor series and the higher order terms are discarded,
which has good convergence. In order to deal with complex power system power flow calculation
problems, the back/forward sweep method is put forward [4-5]. The basic principle of this algorithm is
to push forward from the root node to the end node to obtain the current of all branches, and in turn then
push back from the root node to the end node to obtain the voltage of all nodes. After repeated iterations,
a more accurate solution is obtained. To optimize power flow computation, the implicit Zbus Gaussian
method is proposed [6-7], which iteratively calculates the node voltage of the system based on the
superposition principle. This algorithm has advantages in dealing with the network with many fixed
voltage nodes. At present, the comparison of the effect of various algorithms for calculation of power
flow in distribution network with distributed photovoltaic has not been published in the literature.
To fix the problem, this work compares the error, convergence and computation time about power
flow computation by the Newton-Raphson algorithm, back/forward sweep method and implicit Zbus

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2023 5th International Conference on Energy Systems and Electrical Power IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2584 (2023) 012146 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2584/1/012146

Gaussian method for 5-node circular distribution network, and according to the results some suggestions
for algorithm selection are presented.

2. Power flow algorithm for distribution network with distributed photovoltaic

2.1. Newton-Raphson method

The relationship between node power and voltage when the node voltage method is adopted is shown
in Eq. (1).
𝑃 j𝑄 𝑼 ∑ 𝒀∗ 𝑼∗ (1)
th
where Qi and Pi are the reactive power and active power for the i node, respectively. j is the imaginary
unit; Ui means voltage at ith node; Yik is ith row and kth column element of network admittance array; Uik
means the branch voltage between the ith and kth nodes; The superscript * indicates conjugation; n means
the total number of branches. For the rectangular coordinate system, voltage of the ith node can be
represented by Eq. (2).
𝑼 𝑒 j𝑓 (2)
The node from the 1st to Mth belongs to PQ node, and its input active power and reactive power are
Pis and Qis, respectively. The power balance equation for general PQ node can be written as Eqs. (3)-(4).
∆𝑃 𝑃 𝑃 0, 𝑖 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (3)
∆𝑄 𝑄 𝑄 0, 𝑖 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (4)
Further transformation of Eqs. (3)-(4) yields Eqs. (5)-(6).
𝑃 𝑒 ∑ 𝐺 𝑒 𝐵 𝑓 𝑓∑ 𝐺 𝑓 𝐵 𝑒 0, 𝑖 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (5)
𝑄 𝑓∑ 𝐺 𝑒 𝐵 𝑓 𝑒 ∑ 𝐺 𝑓 𝐵 𝑒 0, 𝑖 1, 2, … , 𝑀 (6)
The node from the M+1th to n-1th belongs to PV node. If the input active power of the node is Pis and
the input voltage amplitude is Uis, then each PV node satisfies Eqs. (7)-(8).
∆𝑃 𝑃 𝑃 0, 𝑖 𝑀 1, 𝑀 2, … , 𝑛 1 (7)
∆𝑈 , 𝑈 𝑈 0, 𝑖 𝑀 1, 𝑀 2, … , 𝑛 1 (8)
Eqs. (9)-(10) can be obtained according to Eqs. (7)-(8).
𝑃 𝑒 ∑ 𝐺 𝑒 𝐵 𝑓 𝑓∑ 𝐺 𝑓 𝐵 𝑒 0, 𝑖 𝑀 1, 𝑀 2, … , 𝑛 1 (9)
𝑈 𝑒 𝑓 0, 𝑖 𝑀 1, 𝑀 2, … , 𝑛 1 (10)
Eq. (11) can be obtained by combining Eqs. (5)-(6) and (9)-(10).
∆𝑾 𝑱∆𝑼 (11)
where J is the Jacobian matrix. ∆W and ∆U are shown in Eqs. (12) and (13), respectively.
∆𝑃 ∆𝑃 ⋯ ∆𝑃
∆𝑾 ∆𝑄 ∆𝑄 ⋯ ∆𝑄 (12)
∆𝑈 , ∆𝑈 , ⋯ ∆𝑈 ,
∆𝑒 ∆𝑒 ⋯ ∆𝑒
∆𝑼 (13)
∆𝑓 ∆𝑓 ⋯ ∆𝑓

2.2. Back/forward sweep method

Starting from the voltage value of the root node of distribution network at step l+1, voltage distribution
is updated from the branch current at step l, and the node voltage of branch between the ith and kth nodes
satisfies Eq. (14).
𝑼 𝑼 𝑰 𝒁 (14)
th th th
where, 𝑼 and 𝑼 are i and k nodes’ voltage at l+1 iteration, respectively. 𝑰 is the branch
current between ith and kth nodes at the lth iteration, and the positive directional current is from ith to kth
nodes. 𝒁 means impedance of branch between ith and kth nodes.
The branch current of each feeder is the sum of the load current of all downstream nodes, so the
branch current of the mth subnetwork can be calculated by Eq. (15).

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2023 5th International Conference on Energy Systems and Electrical Power IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2584 (2023) 012146 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2584/1/012146

IBm=ILmTm (15)
where, IBm is the branch current; ILm is the load current; Tm is the correlation matrix between feeder
branches and load currents in the mth subnetwork of the distribution network. The ith row and kth column
elements of Tm is defined as
𝑇 0 the 𝑘 branch is not associated with the 𝑖 load (16)
1 the 𝑘 branch is associated with the 𝑖 load

2.3. Implicit Zbus Gaussian method

For distribution network with distributed PV, the power flow equation can be expressed by Eq. (17).
I=YU (17)
where, U means the node voltage vector; I means the node injection current vector; Y means the nodal
admittance array of the distribution network. The system equation can also be written as Eq. (18).
𝑰 𝒀 𝒀 𝑼
(18)
𝑰 𝒀 𝒀 𝑼
where I1 and U1 are the current and voltage vectors of the source nodes, respectively. I2 and U2 are the
current and voltage vectors of the remaining nodes except the source nodes, respectively. If there is no
constant power node in the system and I2 is a known constant injection current, then U2 can be directly
calculated according to Eq. (19).
𝑼 𝒀 𝑰 𝒀 𝑼 (19)
When the change in U2 during the iteration is smaller than the critical value, the solution of the
equation is obtained.

3. Comparison of power flow algorithms

The Newton-Raphson algorithm, back/forward sweep algorithm and implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm
are applied to calculate the power flow of a 5-node circular distribution network with distributed PV
shown in Fig. 1. The maximum iteration number is set to 15. The applicability of different algorithms is
compared.
The changes in node voltage and phase calculated by the three algorithms with the number of
iterations are shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Note that in the figures θ1, θ2, θ3, θ5, U1, U2, U3
and U5 mean the phase and amplitude of voltage at the first, second, third, and fifth nodes, respectively.
Fig. 2 shows that the phase and amplitude of the node voltage calculated by Newton-Raphson method
oscillate with number of iteration and do not converge within the maximum iteration number. Therefore,
the Newton-Raphson algorithm is not appropriate for the power flow computation for the circular
distribution network with distributed PV. Figs. 3 and 4 show that the node voltage phase and amplitude
calculated by back/forward sweep algorithm and the implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm oscillate with
number of iterations at the beginning, and tend to stable values with number of iterations, and eventually
converge. Therefore, the back/forward sweep algorithm and the implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm can be
used to calculate power flow for circular distribution network with distributed PV. Obviously,
back/forward sweep method converges after 12 iterations. The implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm
converges after 5 iterations, and the corresponding computation time is 12.53 ms and 4.28 ms,
respectively. In conclusion, implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm is recommended for computation of power
flow in circular distribution network with distributed photovoltaic.

Figure 1. Five-node circular distribution network with distributed PV.

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2023 5th International Conference on Energy Systems and Electrical Power IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2584 (2023) 012146 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2584/1/012146

(a) Voltage amplitude (b) Phase

Figure 2. Change of voltage amplitude, phase with the number of iterations when the Newton-Raphson
method is used.

(a) Voltage amplitude (b) Phase

Figure 3. Relationship between the voltage amplitude, phase and the number of iterations when the
back/forward sweep algorithm is used.

(a) Voltage amplitude (b) Phase

Figure 4. Relationship between the voltage amplitude, phase and the number of iterations when
implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm is used.

4. Conclusions
Power flow of 5-node circular distribution network with distributed PV is calculated by using the
Newton-Raphson algorithm, the back/forward sweep algorithm and implicit Zbus Gaussian algorithm.
The results reveal that the Newton-Raphson method can not converge and can not be used in circular
distribution network with distributed photovoltaic. Both back/forward sweep algorithm and implicit Zbus
Gaussian algorithm can converge and their results are consistent, but the computation time of the latter
is almost 1/3 of the former. Implicit Zbus Gaussian method is recommended for calculation of power
flow for circular distribution network with distributed PV.

Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by Technical Consulting Project of State Grid Jiangsu Electric
Power Co., Ltd. under Grant SGJSWA00PDJS2200069.

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2023 5th International Conference on Energy Systems and Electrical Power IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2584 (2023) 012146 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2584/1/012146

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