Improving Power Flow Robustness via Circuit Simulation Methods
For power system engineers, this provides a robust method for power flow analysis that avoids convergence failures common in existing approaches.
The paper solves convergence issues of complex I-V formulations for power flow in systems with PV buses by applying circuit simulation techniques, achieving consistent global convergence to the correct physical solution from arbitrary initial conditions on test systems up to 10000 buses.
Recent advances in power system simulation have included the use of complex rectangular current and voltage (I-V) variables for solving the power flow and three-phase power flow problems. This formulation has demonstrated superior convergence properties over conventional polar coordinate based formulations for three-phase power flow, but has failed to replicate the same advantages for power flow in general due to convergence issues with systems containing PV buses. In this paper, we demonstrate how circuit simulation techniques can provide robust convergence for any complex I-V formulation that is derived from our split equivalent circuit representation. Application to power grid test systems with up to 10000 buses demonstrates consistent global convergence to the correct physical solution from arbitrary initial conditions.