The power flow analysis for electric power network: A tutorial article

The power system network is complex. This makes it more challenging to obtain valuable information because of its hundreds of buses and transmission lines. In addition, solving the steady-state equations of the power system network requires substantial mathematical computations. The power flow analysis is a study of the electrical power system. Engineers and utility companies use it for the design, control, planning, and future improvement of the electrical power network. Power flow analysis calculates the voltage magnitude, phase angles, active and reactive power flows, losses of the power system network under various loads, and generation conditions. This paper is a tutorial article aimed to present the power flow analysis techniques of Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson, and Fast-Decoupled approaches. The Power World Simulator is used to demonstrate the software implementation of the approaches. The results show that Newton Raphson and Fast Decoupled have a faster convergence. The Newton Raphson method is the popular technique used for the analysis. An illustrative example for an IEEE 3-bus system on each technique is also presented in the article.