A New Software for Power Flow Solution Computing

Using LabVIEW
S. Souag*(1), F. Benhamida

F. Z. Gherbi(2) , A. Graa

Irecom laboratory, dept. of electrotechnics

UDL university of Sidi Bel Abbes
Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria
(1)
slimane.souag@gmail.com

Iceps laboratory, dept. of electrotechnics

UDL university of Sidi Bel Abbes
Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria
(2)
fzgherbi@yahoo.fr

Abstract In this paper we present a new program for

solving the power flow problem using the graphical
programming environment of LabVIEW as a virtual instrument.
This program is used for computing power flow using NewtonRaphson algorithm and DC power flow. Or this latter greatly
simplifies the power flow by making a number of
approximations. Hence the DC power flow reduces the power
flow problem to a set of linear equations. The effectiveness of the
method developed is identified through its application to a 6
buses test system. The calculation results show excellent
performance of the proposed method, in regard to computation
time and quality of results.
Keywords power flow, DC power flow, LabVIEW, virtual
instrument

I.

II. POWER FLOW CALCULATION

The calculation of the power flow [1] is used to determine:
(1) the complex tensions at different buses, (2) the transmitted
power from one bus to another, (3) the powers injected in a bus
and (4) real and reactive losses in the power system.
Supposing the simple power system described by the
Figure 1.

The operator requires to have precise knowledge about

behavior of its network in the event of an incident, to take the
optimal decision. In addition, the problem of load distribution
is the fundamental problem of driving economic electric
power systems.
When the problem of load flow is resolved, we can determine
the values of magnitude and the phase angle of the voltage at
each bus of the power system for a given operating conditions,
which will calculate the values of real and reactive power
transiting in each line. The power balance injected at each
node can be established, which gives us the value of the real
and reactive power loss of the power system.
Solving this problem has led many researchers to find
ways easier and faster to improve their convergence, reducing
the execution time and save a lot of computer memory.
Solving this problem uses usually digital processes that can be
classified into two groups: (1) Process said iterative: method of
Gauss, Gauss Seidel,.... Etc and (2) variationel process: from
the Newton-Raphson method, or Jacobian.

978-1-4673-5814-9/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

PGi+jQGi

PG1+jQG1

z1i

INTRODUCTION

The problem of power flow also said the problem of load

balancing is crucial for anyone who operates a power grid and
also in point of view network structures, to enhance, modify
and adapt the network to consumers load.

Gi

G1

z12

zij
z2j

Pch2+jQch2

Pchj+jQchj

PG2+jQG2

G2
Fig. 1. A simplified diagram of an electrical network

Calculation of the power flow in established steady state is

based on the system of linear equation as follows:
I = Y .V

(1)

where is the complex vector of injected currents into the

network, Y is the matrix of complex admittances and V is the
complex vector of voltages.
To resolve this system of linear equations, one must impose
on each bus either the voltage or the injected current.
Practically the problem is more complicated because we must
define the operating conditions of the power system. These
conditions affect the electrical quantities of the network buses
such as: the real power P, reactive power Q, the voltage
magnitude |V| and the phase angle , these can then be defined
according to three types of buses:

 Generation bus (or controlled voltage bus): The buses are

associated with power generators, there imposes the real
power "PG" (value imposed by the dispatching) and the
voltage magnitude "|V|". The unknown variables for this type
of bus are voltage phase angle "" and the reactive power
generated "QG".
Load bus: buses are directly associated with consumer loads.
The loads are not characterized by their impedance. But their
real power "Pch" and reactive power "Qch" consumed, the
values of these are known, therefore remains to find the
voltage magnitude "|V|" and phase angle "".
Slack bus (or reference bus): this bus is generally associated
with the most important generator. We do not know in
advance power losses of the power system for a given
condition, we have to keep varying the real power generation
of a plant. This is to satisfy the equality that defines that
generation must equals load plus losses.
A. Classification of variables
Generally, the operation of a power system can be
described according to six variables [12] for each bus in a
power system: Pchi, Qchi are real and reactive power consumed
at bus i; PGi ,QGi are real and reactive power generated at bus i ;
Vi is voltage magnitude at bus i and i is phase angle at bus i.

C. constraint on the voltage modules:

The operating conditions of a power system setting limit
the maximum voltage by the dielectric strength of the material
and the saturation of transformers and the minimum limits by
the increasing of losses and maintaining the stability of the
generators. For all buses, the necessary and sufficient
conditions are as follows:
Vi min Vi Vi max i=1,,n

With |Vi| is the voltage magnitude at bus i , |Vimin|,|Vimax| are the

voltage minimum and maximum limits, respectively.
Voltage constraints satisfying are very important operation
and equipment safety. A violation of the upper limit that is
sometimes observed in low-load may damage the insulation
material. Otherwise, too low voltages can affect the rational
operation of the network and can lead to its collapse.
D. constraint on the transit capacity of the line:
The transmitted power in a line must not exceed the
maximum, as follows:
S ij S ijmax with S ij =

Pij2 + Qij2

(4)

These variables are divided into three groups: (1)

Uncontrollable variables: are the real and reactive power
related to the consumption; (2) Independent variables or
control: are generally real and reactive power generated. In
some cases, we can consider the voltages of generation buses
or transformation ratios of transformers with load tap changer,
as control variables and (3) Dependent variables or state
variables: these are the magnitude and phase angle of voltage
representing the state of the system.

where Sij is the apparent power transited in line i-j; Sijmax is the
maximum apparent power transited in the line i-j; Pij is the
active power transited in line i-j and Qij is the reactive power
transited in line i-j.

B. Classification of constraints:
These constraints [11] are related to the physical nature of
the power system elements. We distinguish the constraints on
the dependent variables, say security constraint and constraint
on the independent variables limits. These constraints must be
checked at each load balancing and optimization.

E. constraint of independent variables:

These constraints are related to the physical nature of
power system elements:

Constraint on the dependent variables constraints related to

network security are generally as follows: Power balance
between generation and load: In steady state and at any time,
equality between generation and load of real and reactive
power must be provided by the following equations:
Ng

Gi

i =1

Ng

Q
i =1

Nc

Pchi PL = 0

Q chi Q L = 0

1) constraint on the generation:

The power produced by each unit is bounded above by the
maximum power it can provide and below by the minimum,
which is conditioned by the performance of this unit and the
constraints on the turbine. For all generation buses, the real and
reactive constraints are:
PGimin PGi PGimax
min
max
QGi
QGi QGi

(2)

i =1

Nc

Gi

Generally, from the constraints of transmitted power, we

can determine the constraints of current corresponding to the
lines and transformers. We limit the current for overload and
stability reasons.

III.
(3)

i =1

where PL is the total real losses, QL are reactive losses, Nc is the

number of load buses and Ng is the number of generation
buses.

i=1,,Ng

PRESENTATION OF THE DECOUPLED NEWTON METHOD

The Newton algorithm [6] for solving the problem of

power flow is considered as the most robust used in practice.
But the drawback is that the terms of the Jacobian matrix and
the set of linear equations in Eq. (5) must be recalculated at
each iteration.

p1
V1

V1
(5)
Q1

p2 = [ J ] 2

V
2
Q2

...
V2

...
Since thousands of power flow solutions are often executed
for planning or operating study, it was important to find ways
to accelerate this process. The reference [3] is the development
of a technique known as "the fast decoupled Newton method"
(it is often called "decoupled Stott," referring to the first
author).
After simplification of Newton-Raphson method:
pi
= Bik k
Vi

(6)

Qi
= Bik V k
Vi

(7)

2. We simplifies the relationship between Q and V in Eq.

(8) as follows:
Neglecting all effects of transformers phase-shifting.
The simplified equations are:
p1
V
1
1
p2

= [ B '] 2
V
2
...
...

Q1
V
1
V1
Q2

= [ B "] V 2
V
2
...
...

(10)

(11)

The elements of matrices B and B are:

We express the Eq. (6) and Eq. (7) with two matrix equations:
'

P1
V
1 B11
P2

= B21
V 2 ...
...

Q1
V
1 B11
Q2

= B 21
V 2 ...
...

B ik = (1 / xik )

B12
B 22
...

Supposing a branch between bus i and k

or Bik' = 0 if no branch between bus i and k

... 1
... 2
... ...

(8)
Bii' =

Bii'' =
B12
B 22
...

... V1

... V 2
... ...

(9)

Suppose that rik<<xik this will change -Bik to -1/xik

Neglecting all shunts reactance to the ground.
Neglecting all shunts to the ground resulting from autotransformers.

(13)

xik
rik2 + xik2

(14)

Bik

(15)

k =1

n
k =1

IV. DC POWER FLOW FORMULATION

Another simplification on power flow algorithm [4] can be
performed by neglecting simply any QV equation in Eq. (11).
This gives as result a linear and non-iterative power flow
algorithm. To achieve these simplifications, we simply assume
that Vi =1.0pu for every bus i. Eq. (9) becomes:

Note that both Eq. (8) and Eq. (9) are based on the same
matrix. These two matrices will be different with the further
simplifications:
1. We simplifies the relationship between p and in Eq.
(8) as follows:

1
xik

Bik" = Bik =

(12)

p1
1
p = [ B ']
2
2

(16)

The terms of the matrix B are described above by Eq. 12 and

Eq. 13. The DC power flow is used only to calculate the real
power flow (MW) of transmission lines and transformers. It
gives no indication of the voltages or on the reactive power
flow (Mvar) and apparent power (MVA). The power flow on
each line using the DC power flow can be described by the
following equation:
p ik =

1
( i k ) and pi =
xik

k = nodes
conected i

p ki

(17)

V.

PROGRAMMING IN LABVIEW

According to DC load flow approximation and Newton

Raphson method, we have programmed a virtual instrument
using LabVIEW [7], [9] which can be used to calculate the
"DC Load flow" and "N-R Load flow" by introducing line
and buses data of any power system in the front panel of the
program.

Fig. 4. Graphical program of DC load flow using LabVIEW

The Figure 5 presents graphical interface of bus and line

data that we have introduced using bus and line matrix setting.
Fig. 2. Graphical interface of bus setting in LabVIEW

To introduce the data in the program we have programmed

an interface showed in Figure 2 and 3 who can create and
remove bus and line data and save this data to hard drive and
load this data from this to use it for another application.

Fig. 5. Graphical interface of bus data and line data in LabVIEW

Fig. 6. Graphical interface of DC load flow using LabVIEW

Fig. 3. Graphical interface for introducing bus data in LabVIEW

VI.

CASE STUDY AND RESULTS

To demonstrate the performance of the proposed DC power

flow program and Newton Raphson for solving the power
flow, we have taken a 6-buses test system from reference [2].
The solution is obtained by the LabVIEW [8], [10] program
which is shown in Figure 6 and 7.

The system contains 6 buses, bus and lines data for this test
system are shown in Table 1 and 2. To enable a comparison
with [2], we simulated the same system with the Newton
Raphson method in LabVIEW and it is shown in Table 4.
The power flow results in different lines for the 6-bus test
system are listed in Table 3 (left) and the injected real power
are shown in Table 3 (right). The DC load flow results are
compared to results calculated by Newton Raphson method
using LabVIEW by taking losses into account of Table 4. The
latest are more or less consistent with the results calculated
with the DC power flow method which validate our results and
recognize the advantage of the proposed DC power flow with
regard to Newton Raphson in terms of computing time and
power flow evaluation.

VII. CONCLUSION
The importance of studying and evaluation the power flow
in a power system is crucial to obtaining a state of network; for
this purpose, we developed a program based on DC power
flow method and Newton Raphson for solving the power flow
using LabVIEW.
The program has given very satisfactory results, through its
application to solve a test system of 6 buses, which explore the
performance of the algorithm.
The results showed that the differences in power flow
results between the DC power flow and the Newton Raphson
methods are satisfactory, and we compare these results with [3]
which check the validity of this program. Concerning
execution time, the performance is to have good graphical
interface that can easily introduce the data and run computation
to use this results for future works.

Fig. 7. Graphical interface of N-R power flow computing in LabVIEW

TABLE I. BUS DATA OF 6- BUS TEST SYSTEM

Bus
N

type

1
2
3
4
5
6

1
2
2
0
0
0

voltage

Angle

mag

degree

MW

load
Mvar

MW

Generation
Mvar

Mvar generation limit

Qmin

Qmax

Static
Mvar

1
1
1
1
1
1

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
70.00
70.00
70.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
70.00
70.00
70.00

0.00
50.00
60.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

TABLE II.
From bus
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
4
5

TABLE III. DC POWER FLOW RESULTS USING LABVIEW OF 6-BUS TEST

SYSTEM

LINES DATA OF 6-BUSES TEST SYSTEM OF 6-BUS TEST

SYSTEM
To bus
2
4
5
3
4
5
6
5
6
5
6

R(pu)
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

X(pu)
0.20
0.20
0.30
0.25
0.10
0.30
0.20
0.26
0.10
0.40
0.30

1/2B
(0)

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

DC load flow solution

line code
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

From bus

To bus

Real Power (MW)

1
1
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
4
5

2
4
5
3
4
5
6
5
6
5
6

25.32836
41.567165
33.104475
1.853709
32.47761
16.218902
24.778139
16.931705
44.922004
4.044774
0.299857

TABLE IV. N-R POWER FLOW RESULTS USING LABVIEW OF 6- BUS TEST SYSTEM
Maximum Power Mismatch = 3.77059e-5, No. of Iterations = 3

Bus

Voltage

Angle

Mag

degree

MW

Load
Mvar

MW

Mvar

Mvar

1
2
3
4
5
6

1.05
1.05
1.07
0.989
0.985
1.004
Total

0.00
-3.67
-4.27
-4.20
-5.28
-5.95

0.00
0.00
0.00
70.00
70.00
70.00
210.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
70.00
70.00
70.00
210.00

107.87
50.00
60.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
217.869

15.96
74.35
98.62
0.00
0.00
0.00
179.93

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

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International Conference on Advances in Power System Control,
Operation and Management, IEE Hong Kong, Nov., 1991

Generation

Injected

injected real power

N bus

Real Power (MW)

100

50

60

-70

-70

-70