A Simple Algorithm for Unbalanced Radial

Distribution System Load Flow

Sivkumar Mishra
Department of Electrical Engineering
Ghanashyam Hemalata Institute of Technology & Mangement
Puri, Orissa, India- 752002
sivmishra@yahoo.com

Abstract Many programs of real-time applications in the area

of Distribution Automation, such as network optimization, Var
planning, switching, state estimation, and so forth, require a
robust and efficient load flow method for distribution systems.
Such a load flow method must be able to model the special
features of distribution systems in sufficient detail. Many
approaches for unbalanced radial distribution system load-flow
analyses have been developed. Among these approaches, the
backward/forward sweep methods are commonly used due to
their computational efficiencies and solution accuracies. This
paper proposes a simple algorithm for unbalanced radial
distribution system load flow analysis. The proposed algorithm is
basically a forward / backward sweep method. A novel scheme of
bus identification and multiphase data handling makes the
implementation of the algorithm very simple. The proposed load
flow algorithm has been implemented on three test distribution
systems. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been
assessed by comparing it with several other established
Unbalanced Distribution Load Flow methods.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Load flow analysis is a very important and basic tool in the

field of power system engineering. This is used in the
operational as well as planning stages. Since the invention and
widespread use of digital computers, beginning in the 1950s
and 1960s, many methods for solving the load flow problem
have been developed. Most of the methods have grown up
around transmission systems and, over the years, variations of
the Newton method such as the fast decoupled method; have
become the most widely used. However, distribution networks
because of the following special features need a different
approach for its load flow analysis.
-

Radial Structure
High R/X ratios of the feeders
Multiphase, unbalanced operation
Unbalanced multiphase loads
Large no. of nodes

The Distribution System Load Flow (DSLF) methods take

special care to overcome the ill- conditioned nature arising due

to high R/X ratios of the feeders, which makes the fast

decoupled Newton method often not valid. The DSLF
methods also exploit the radial nature of the distribution
networks. Many programs of real time applications in the area
of distribution automation (DA), such as network
optimization, Var. Planning, switching, state estimation, and
so forth, require a robust and efficient distribution system load
flow method, which would be able to model the special
features of distribution systems in sufficient detail. Several
load flow algorithms specially designed for distribution
systems have been proposed in the literature. In the early
endeavors, a direct solution approach [2] using the impedance
matrix of the unbalanced network and the Zbus Gauss approach
[3] have been suggested. Subsequently, different other
techniques, such as the three phase fast decoupled power flow
algorithm[4],the
rectangular
Newton-Raphson
based
method[5] and phase decoupled method[6] etc., have also been
proposed. Another direct approach, which utilizes two
matrices developed from the topological characteristics of the
distribution system, is proposed in [7].But over years, the
forward and backward sweep method, emerged to be the most
efficient and fast for solving the load flow of radial
distribution systems. This method model the distribution
network as a tree with the slack bus being the root. The
backward sweep primarily sums either the line currents or
power flows from the extremities to the root. The forward
sweep is a voltage drop calculation, providing updates to the
voltage profile based on the current estimates of the flows.
Kersting and Mendive[8] and Kersting[9] have presented a
method for solving unbalanced radial distribution network by
using Ladder Network Theory. Thukaram et al. [10] have
proposed a three phase power flow algorithm for solving
unbalanced radial distribution networks by Forward Backward
Sweep (FBS) Method. Ranjan et al. [11] have used Power
Sum based FBS method to solve unbalanced radial distribution
networks.
The algorithm proposed in this paper, is basically a forward
and backward sweep method. However, the scheme of
identification of buses and feeders makes the algorithm simple

and fast for the unbalanced radial distribution system load

flow analysis. The performance of the proposed method is
compared with other established methods considering some
practical unbalanced test distribution systems.
II.

UNBALANCED THREE PHASE LINE MODEL

Fig. 1 shows a three phase line section between bus-i and

bus j. The line parameters can be obtained by the method
developed by Carson and Lewis [1]. A 4 x 4 matrix, which
takes into account the self and mutual couplings effects of the
unbalanced three phase line section, can be expressed as:

Zaa Zab Zac Zan

Zba Zbb Zbc Zbn

[ Zabcn ] =
Zca Zcb Zcc Zcn

Zna Znb Znc Znn

Via Vja Zaa n Zab n Iij a

Vib = Vjb + Zba n Zbb n Iij b

Vib Vjb Zbb n Zbc n Iij b

Vic = Vjc + Zcb n Zcc n Iij c

Via Vja Zaa n Zac n Iij a

Vic = Vjc + Zca n Zcc n Iij c

(4a)

(4b)

(4c)

For single phase line sections:

Via = Vja + Zaa n * Iij a

(1)

(5a)

Vib = Vjb + Zbb n * Iij b

(5b)

Vic = Vjc + Zcc n * Iij c

(5c)

The above models for multiphase distribution systems are

considered in the following sections for load flow.
III.

EQUIVALENT CURRENT INJECTION(ECI)

For distribution networks, the equivalent current injection

based model is more practical. For bus-i, the complex load Si
is expressed as:

Si = Pi + jQi ,

Fig. 1 Three Phase Line Section Model

i = 1.......nb.

(6)

nb = total number of buses of the radial distribution system

After Krons reduction is applied, the effects of the neutral or

ground wire are still included in this model as shown in (2).

Z aa n
[ Zabc ] = Zba n
Z
ca n

Z ab n
Zbb n
Z cb n

Z ac n

Z bc n
Z cc n

And the corresponding equivalent current injection at the kth

iteration of solution is

P + jQ
Ii = i k i
Vi

(2)

The relationship between bus voltage and branch currents in

Fig. 1. can be expressed as:

Via Vja Zaa n Zab n Zac n Iij a

Vib = Vjb + Zba n Zbb n Zbc n Iij b (3)

Vic Vjc Zca n Zcb n Zcc n Iij c

For any phases failed to present, as in the case of two phase or
single phase feeder sections, the corresponding row and
column in this matrix will contain null entries. For two phase
line sections with a-b, b-c and a-c phases:

(7)

Vik and Iik are the bus voltage and equivalent current
injection of bus-i at the kth iteration respectively.

IV.

EXPRESSIONS FOR BRANCH CURRENTS

Referring fig.2, for branches preceding end buses like bus-i

or bus-k, the concerned branch currents can be written as:

I ij abc = I j
I ik

abc

abc

= Ik

abc

(8a)

Where, Iijabc and Iikabc are the currents in the branches i-j and i-k,
preceding the end buses j and k respectively. Hence, for end
buses, the branch currents preceding to the buses are equal to
the ECIs at the buses. For all other branches, the branch
currents preceding to a bus are the summation of all the branch
currents connected to the bus downstream plus the ECI of the

bus. For the branch h-i preceding to the bus-i, the branch
currents can be written as:

I hi abc = I ij abc + I ik abc + I i abc =

m = all those
buses
connected
to bus-i
downstream

I im abc + I i abc
(8b)

Fig. 3 A sample unbalanced distribution network

Table-1
Bus No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Fig. 2 some multiphase feeders of a radial distribution network

V.

BUS IDENTIFICATION SCHEME

For a multiphase unbalanced radial distribution network, the

network tree is represented as a single line equivalent, where a
line between two buses represents only the connectivity
between the buses irrespective of the type of phase of the
feeders. For such a radial distribution network:

nbr = nb 1

mt[i]
1
5
8
9
11
12
13
14

Table-2
S. No.
[s]
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

(9)

nbr= no. of branches of the tree of the RDN

A vector of dimension double the number of branches of a

radial distribution network, namely, adb[2*nbr] is introduced.
This vector would store the adjacent buses of each of the buses
of the radial distribution network. Two other vectors mf [ ] and
mt [ ] are introduced, which act as pointers to the adb [ ]
vector. These vectors in turn govern the reservation allocation
of memory location for each node, where mf[i] and mt[i] hold
the data of starting memory location and end memory location
of bus-i in the adb[ ] vector , i = 1,2 nb. All the buses
are numbered in the increasing order down stream with the
substation bus numbered as 1. A branch preceding a bus will
be numbered one less than the bus number. The above
mentioned bus identification scheme is explained with
reference to a sample unbalanced distribution system of fig.3.
Table-1 and Table-2 shows data stored in mf [ ], mt[ ] and
adb[ ] vectors of the sample distribution network.

mf[i]
1
2
6
9
10
12
13
14

adb [s ]

Node No.

2
1
3
5
7
2
4
8
3
2
6
5
2
3

1
2

3
4
5
6
7
8

Advantages of the Scheme

An end bus can be easily identified. For an end bus i,
(10)
mt[i] - mf[i] = 0
Of course, the only exception is the substation bus,
which is numbered as 1.

A junction bus can be identified as:

(11)
mt[i] - mf[i] > 1
Similarly, an intermediate bus which is not a junction
Bus can be identified as:

mt[i] - mf[i] = 1

(12)

Given a bus i , the previous bus n , can be computed

as :

for (k = mf [i ]; k <= mt[i ]; k + + )

{if ( adb[ k ] < i )
{n = adb[k ]}

(13)

Table-4
Conf.
ID
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Phasing
ABCN
ABCN
AN
BN
CN
ABN
BCN
ACN

Phase
Cond.
336,400
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0

Applying the scheme, the backward sweep to

calculate the branch currents from the ECIs becomes
very fast and effective.
On application of this scheme reduces a lot of
memory and CPU time as it minimizes the search
process in identifying the adjacent buses and
branches of all the buses of a radial distribution
system.
MULTIPHASE DATA HANDLING

A practical unbalanced distribution system contains feeders

which are multiphase in nature. The phase impedance matrices
of three phase, two phase and single phase feeders are
represented as 3 x 3,2 x 2 and 1 x 1 matrices respectively, as
shown in (3), (4) and (5) respectively. A bus phase is assigned
to a particular bus depending upon the phase type of the
feeders preceding the bus. Thus, in fig. 3, the bus-2 is assigned
a bus phase 3. Similarly, bus-3 is assigned a bus phase 2 and
rest other buses are assigned bus phase of 1. The only
exception is the substation bus-1 which is always assigned a
bus phase of 3. A vector bp [i] is introduced to store the bus
phases of all the buses of the radial distribution network. All
the feeders are assigned a unique configuration code
depending upon the phase sequence and configuration of line
conductors as well as depending upon the type of phase and
neutral conductors etc. A vector bt[i] is introduced to store the
codes assigned to the feeders which in turn get assigned to the
buses following the feeder branches. This is a further
classification of buses in addition to the bus phase
classification using bp[i] vector. The two vectors have
dimensions equal to the number of branches (nbr) of the RDN
and can be formed from the usual input data of radial
distribution network.Table-3 explains the above scheme with
reference to the radial distribution network of fig. 3. The
various configuration codes are listed in Table-4.
Table-3
Bus
i
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

bt[i]

3
2
1
1
1
1
1

1
7
5
5
5
3
4

Type
3- 4wire
3- 4wire
1- 2wire
1- 2wire
1- 2wire
2- 3wire
2- 3wire
2- 3wire

An algorithm is proposed in this section for the multiphase

unbalanced load flow for distribution networks. This is based
on the Forward Backward Sweep based method [10 ], where
the proposed schemes are implemented.

STEP - 2 :
STEP - 3 :

STEP - 4 :
STEP - 5 :
STEP - 6 :

Read input data regarding the unbalanced

radial distribution system.
Using the data bp[i],bt[i], adb[i], mf[i] and
mt[i] vectors are formed.
Estimate the voltage magnitude at all the buses
to be 1p.u and voltage angles to be 00, -1200
and 1200 for phase a , phase-b and phase-c
respectively.
Set iteration count k=1.
ECIs are calculated using (7) for all the buses
starting from the i =2 to i = nb.
A backward sweep from the bus i = nb is
started to calculate the branch currents.
(i) Check for mt[i] mf [i]

For zero value i.e for an end bus,

(8-a) is used to calculate the
branch current following the bus
upstream.

Else (8-b) is used to sum up the

branch currents connected to the
bus preceding it while going
upstream.
(ii) while carrying out the above step, the bp[i]
and bt[i] values of the bus i are also
checked to ensure computations for only
the concerned phases.

STEP -7:

bp [i]

Spacing
ID
500
500
510
510
510
505
505
505

VII. ALGORITHM

STEP - 1 :
VI.

Neutral
Cond.
336,400
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0
1/0

STEP-8:

Set i=2.
A forward sweep is started to update
bus voltage magnitudes and angles.

Using (13), the bus n which

precedes the bus i is computed .
bp[i] value is checked which is
followed by the checking of bt[i]
value.

STEP-9:

The value of bp [i ]refers to the phase of the

feeders connected to the ith bus upstream
and bt[i] refers to the configuration code
of the feeders, enabling to decide the
equation
to be considered (out of
3,4a,4b,4c,5a.5b,5c)for the computation of
bus voltage magnitude and angle.

shown
in
fig.
3
is
used
for
comparisons.
The input data of the network is given in Table-4 and Table-5.
The final voltage solutions of all the four methods are shown
in Table-6. The final converged voltage solutions of method-4
are very close to the solutions of method-2 and method-3,
which confirm the accuracy of the proposed method. The
values for method -1 are not mentioned in the table, although
they match.
Table-6

i = i +1.

STEP-10: Check for i = nb , if yes step-11 is followed. Else

step-8 is followed.
STEP-11: Convergence is checked for each of the bus
voltage magnitude comparing with the values of
previous iteration. On convergence, step-13 is
followed; else step-12 is followed.
STEP-12: k = k+1, and goto step-5
STEP-13: Power flow and System loss is calculated.
VIII. TEST RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A computer program has been developed based on the
proposed algorithm to implement the three phase load flow in
Borland C++ language and tested on a Windows XP based
Pentium-4 ,2.6 GHz, 256 MB RAM PC. The convergence
tolerance was 0.0001 p.u. Three methods are used for tests and
comparisons.

Method-1 : Method as reported in [3]

Method-2 : Topological Direct Method [7 ]
Method-3 : Method as reported in [11]
Method-4: Proposed Algorithm

A. Accuracy Comparison
For any new method, it is important to make sure that the final
solution of the new method is same as the other established
methods. An eight bus system, including the three phase,
double phase and single phase line sections and buses as
Table-5
Sending
end
Node

Sending
end
node
phase

Receiv
. end
Node

Receiv.
end
Node
Phase

Br.
no.

Conf.
ID.

Br.
lngth.
(ft.)

1
2
3
2
5
2
3

3
3
2
3
1
3
2

2
3
4
5
6
7
8

3
2
1
1
1
1
1

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

1
7
5
5
5
3
4

1000
400
500
400
400
500
500

Bus
no.
2-a
2-b
2-c
3-b
3-c
4-c
5-c
6-c
7-a
8-b

Method-2
|V|
Ang.
p.u
(Rad)
0.9974 -.0007
0.9967 -2.094
0.9968 2.0927
0.9944 -2.0959
0.9957 2.0921
0.9937 2.0921
0.9944 2.0928
0.9936 2.0928
0.9945 -.0007
0.9902 -2.096

Method-3
|V| p.u Ang.
(Rad)
0.9974 -.0007
0.9967 -2.094
0.9968 2.0927
0.9942 -2.096
0.9957 2.0921
0.9937 2.0921
0.9944 2.0928
0.9936 2.0928
0.9945 -.0007
0.9902 -2.096

Method-4
|V|
Ang.
p.u
(Rad)
0.9974 -.0007
0.9967 -2.094
0.9968 2.0927
0.9942 -2.096
0.9957 2.0921
0.9937 2.0921
0.9944 2.0928
0.9936 2.0928
0.9945 -.0007
0.9902 -2.096

B. Performance Test
Two test systems, Test System-1, a 4.16 kV 25 bus
unbalanced distribution network [9] and Test System-2, a 24.9
kV IEEE 34 bus network [12] are considered. The input data
for the test system-1 is given in Table -4 and Table -7. The
input data for the test system-2 is given in Table -8 and Table 9.The proposed method has been compared with 3 other
established methods, the comparison in terms of no. of
iterations and CPU execution time is presented in Table10.Method-1, obviously, the slowest due to the LU
factorization of the Y-bus, method -2 is an improved method,
which avoids the LU factorization, but when the network size
increases, method-3 which is a Power summation based
Forward Backward Sweep method [11] is faster and more
importantly, the difference in CPU execution time is very less
for the two test systems. However, the proposed method has
the least no. of iterations and CPU execution time.
Table-7
Sending
end
node
1
2
3
4
2
6
6
7
9
10
11
11
7

Sending
End
Node
phase
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
3

Receiv.
End
Node
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Receiv.
End
Node
Phase
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
1
1
3

Br.

Conf.
ID.

Br.
Lngth
(ft.)

1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
6
3
4
2

1000
500
500
500
500
500
1000
500
500
300
200
200
500

no.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

14
14
7
3
18
19
18
21
4
23
24

3
3
3
3
3
2
3
1
3
3
2

15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

IX.

3
1
3
3
3
1
1
1
3
2
1

14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24

2
5
2
2
2
4
5
5
2
7
4

300
300
500
500
500
400
400
400
400
400
400

Table-8
Receiv.
End
Node

1
2
3
4
4
6
7
8
9
10
11
9
13
13
15
16
17
17
19

Sending
End
Node
phase
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
1
1
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

20
21
20
23
23
25
26

3
1
3
3
3
3
3

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Receiv.
End
Node
Phase
3
3
3
1
3
3
3
3
1
1
1
3
2
3
3
3
1
3
3

21
22
23
24
25
26
27

1
1
3
1
3
3
3

Conf.
ID.

Br.
Lngth
(ft.)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19

1
1
1
4
1
1
1
1
6
6
6
1
7
1
1
1
4
1
1

2585
1730
5984
5841
1411
5256
1800
310
1710
15345
10464
3650
3031
840
6563
3802
6927
741
3781

20
21
22
23
24
25
26

5
5
1
3
1
2
2

3832
10562
1619
1620
5831
280
4632

Br.
no.

3
3
3
3
3
3
2

28
29
30
31
32
33
34

3
3
3
3
1
2
2

27
28
29
30
31
32
33

2
2
1
1
3
7
7

3641
3812
544
3281
860
280
4860

Table-9
Conf.
ID
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

CONCLUSION

In this paper, a simple algorithm for unbalanced distribution

system load flow analysis was proposed, which is basically a
Forward Backward Sweep based method. The proposed
scheme of bus identification and multiphase data handling
makes the method quite fast. This scheme reduces a lot of
memory and CPU time as it minimizes the search process in
identifying the adjacent buses and braches of all the buses of a
radial distribution system. Test results (Table-6) confirm the
accuracy of the method whereas the fastness of the both in
terms of no. of iterations and CPU execution time is evident
from the results presented in Table-10, which confirms the
supremacy of the Forward Backward Sweep based method
over other methods. The distribution load flow considering a
much larger and realistic distribution network such as
considering the presence of distribution cables, three phase
voltage regulators, composite nature of loads ,dispersed
generators etc., is included in the future work.

Sending
end
node

27
28
25
30
31
31
33

Phasing
ABCN
ABCN
AN
BN
CN
AN
BCN

Phase
Cond.
4/0
1/0
#4
#4
#2
#2
#4

Neutral
Cond.
4/0
1/0
#4
#4
#2
#2
#4

Spacing
ID
500
500
510
510
510
510
505

Type
3- 4wire
3- 4wire
1- 2wire
1- 2wire
1- 2wire
1- 2wire
2- 3wire

Table-10

Methods
Method-1
Method-2
Method-3
Method-4

Test System-1
No. of
CPU
Iteration
Time(ms)
3
88
4
16
2
16
2
11

Test System-2
No. of
CPU
Iteration
Time(ms)
4
120
5
63
3
16
3
12

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