Voltage and current sensitivities of radial distribution network: a new approach

A new method is proposed for determination of voltage and current sensitivities at different buses and branches of a radial power distribution network. First-order sensitivity expressions for bus voltage and branch current with respect to bus power load have been developed. These sensitivities expressions are then used to evaluate sensitivity constants at different buses and for various branches with respect to load variation at various buses. The method has been applied to a 33 KV, 41-bus practical distribution system. The results are compared with the conventional Jacobian method and almost negligible error has been observed. The evaluated voltage and current sensitivities for the 41-bus system are then used to determine the optimised limits of the existing network for forecast load to demonstrate the application of derived sensitivities. The method proposed here greatly reduces the computational effort compared to other existing methods.