Gradient Methods for Load-Flow Problems

Gradient methods are applied to load-flow studies. It is shown that these are more relevant to the problem statement than the known methods. Steepest-descent and conjugate-gradient methods are adapted, but the main point made is that the load-flow can be reformulated as an optimization problem, thereby permitting recourse to other optimization methods. The numerical results obtained imply that such reformulation may reduce the required computer time.