Efficient load flow for large weakly meshed networks

An efficient method for calculating the load flow solution of weakly meshed transmission and distribution systems is presented. Its essential advantages over a previous approach are the following: (1) It uses active and reactive powers as flow variables rather than complex currents, thus simplifying the treatment of P, V buses and reducing the related computational effort to half; (2) It uses an efficient tree-labeling technique which also contributes to the computational efficiency of the procedure; (3) It uses an improved solution strategy, thereby reducing the burden of mismatch calculations which is an important component of the solution process. Results of tests with 30, 243, 1380, and 4130 bus systems are given to illustrate the performance of the proposed method