Tracing the flow of electricity

Continuing trends towards the deregulation and unbundling of power transmission services has resulted in the need to assess what impact a particular generator or load has on the power system. A new method of tracing the flow of electricity in meshed electrical networks is proposed which may be applied to both real and reactive power flows. The method allows the assessment of how much of the real and reactive power output from a particular power station goes to a particular load. It also allows the assessment of contributions of individual generators (or loads) to individual line flows. A loss-apportioning algorithm has also been introduced which allows the breakdown of the total transmission losses into components to be allocated to individual loads or generators. The method can be useful in providing additional insight into power system operation and can be used to modify existing tariffs of charging for transmission loss, reactive power and transmission services