FAST DECOUPLED POWER-FLOW FOR UNBALANCED RADIAL-DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS

This paper presents a novel power flow formulation and an effective so lution method for general unbalanced radial distribution systems. Comp rehensive models are considered including lines, switches, transformer s, shunt capacitors, cogenerators, and several types of loads. A new p roblem formulation of three-phase distribution power flow equations ta king into account the radial structure of the distribution network is presented. A distinguishing feature of the new problem formulation is that it significantly reduces the number of power dow equations, as co mpared with the conventional formulation. The numerical properties as well as the structural properties of distribution systems are exploite d resulting in a fast decoupled solution algorithm. The proposed solut ion algorithm is evaluated on three-phase unbalanced 292-bus and 394-b us test systems with very promising results.