The loss that is unknown is no loss at all: A top-down/bottom-up approach for estimating distribution losses

The accurate evaluation of losses in power systems has important technical, economic, and regulatory repercussions. For example, losses are increasingly becoming one of the most important measures of system performance, especially in connection with private sector participation (PSP) in the distribution segment of the industry. This paper proposes a top-down/bottom-up approach for accurately estimating technical losses in power distribution systems when a complete set of modeling data is not available. The results of the recent application of this approach in a developing country are also presented.