Implementation of a Voltage Sweep Power Flow Method and Comparison with Other Power Flow Techniques

Traditional power flow analysis techniques such as the Newton-Raphson and the Gauss-Seidel methods are widely used in analyzing power transmission systems. However, they are inefficient and may diverge due to the different network characteristics of power distribution systems such as radial and high R/X ratio. Therefore, other techniques such as the voltage sweep algorithms are developed for power distribution systems. In this thesis, the forward and backward sweep algorithm is studied and validated in Java. The sweep algorithm can deal with balanced networks which are radial or weakly meshed and contain distributed generators. Networks with different topologies are implemented to assess the convergence behavior of the sweeping algorithm and comparisons with established methods in the open-source Java power flow package JPower (the Newton-Raphson and Gauss-Seidel methods) are made. Results show that the sweeping algorithm is more efficient in analyzing power distribution systems: it has the least runtime among the three methods and the time-saving advantage is more obvious for networks with less loops and PV nodes.