An Efficient and Simple Load Flow Approach for Radial and Meshed Distribution Networks

The main contribution of this paper is: (i) proposing a new efficient and simple load flow method for balanced radial and meshed distribution systems, (ii) impact of load models, different X/R ratios, load growth and tolerance levels to check robustness of proposed load flow method, (iii) impact of number of loops on meshed distribution systems, (iv) Comparison of radial and mesh distribution for voltage profile, total power losses, and number of iterations. The convergence ability of the proposed load flow method is evaluated under these conditions. Computer program has been developed to implement the power flow solution scheme in MATLAB and successfully applied to several practical distribution networks with radial and mesh structure. The convergence ability is quantitatively evaluated for different loading conditions, load growth, R/X ratios, and tolerance levels. Moreover, the effects of static load modeling on the convergence characteristics of the proposed algorithm are also investigated. Effectiveness of the proposed load flow method has been tested on IEEE 33 bus and IEEE 69 bus radial and meshed distribution networks. The proposed load flow method is compared with existing load flow methods, Ghosh et al. [6], Aravindhababu et al. [7], and J.H.Teng [16] to demonstrate its effectiveness. Keywords— Load flow, radial and mesh distribution system, load models, load growth