A Novel Direct Power Flow for Distribution Systems with Voltage-Controlled Buses

Large-scale distribution systems (DSs) require an efficient power flow algorithm which can explicitly exploit their characteristics. This paper presents a novel power flow algorithm for radial and weakly meshed distribution systems (WMDSs) using a direct method (DM). The paper also develops a novel approach to simulate the voltage-controlled buses which is becoming increasingly important due to the introduction of distributed generations in DSs. The proposed power flow algorithm is constructed based on simple electrical circuit rules so that only a Z matrix expressing common impedances between loads is required for simulation. For WMDSs, only modification is to use the current divider rule to solve meshes. The simulation of PV-buses is presented using the Newton-Raphson solution algorithm. The validation and comparison of results in different systems show the simplicity and low computations of the proposed method which make it time-saving and very efficient for large-scale DSs.