Buses

The lines in the single-line diagram connect nodes – points in the system that are
"electrically distinct" (i.e., there is nonzero electrical impedance between them). For
sufficiently large systems, these points represent physical busbars, so the diagram
nodes are frequently called buses. A bus corresponds to a location where the power is
either injected into the system (e.g., a generator) or consumed (an electrical load).[3] A
steady-state of each bus can be characterized by its voltage phasor; the system state is
defined by a vector[4] of voltage phasors for all the buses.[5] In a physical system the state
is calculated through power system state estimation, since the end of the 20th century
this process involves direct simultaneous measurements (synchrophasor) using
the phasor measurement units.[6]