IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO.
3, AUGUST 2007
Development of Three-Phase Unbalanced Power
Flow Using PV and PQ Models for Distributed
Generation and Study of the Impact of DG Models
Sarika Khushalani, Student Member, IEEE, Jignesh M. Solanki, Student Member, IEEE, and
Noel N. Schulz, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—With the increased installations of distributed genera-
tors (DGs) within power systems, load flow analysis of distribution
systems needs special models and algorithms to handle multiple
sources. In this paper, the development of an unbalanced three-
phase load flow algorithm that can handle multiple sources is de-
scribed. This software is capable of switching the DG mode of op-
eration from constant voltage to constant power factor. The algo-
rithm to achieve this in the presence of multiple DGs is proposed.
Shipboard power systems (SPS) have other special characteristics
apart from multiple sources, which make the load flow difficult
to converge. The developed software is verified for a distribution
system without DG using the Radial Distribution Analysis Package
(RDAP). The developed software analyzes an IEEE test case and
an icebreaker ship system. System studies for the IEEE 37-node
feeder without the regulator show the effect of different models and
varying DG penetration related to the increase in loading. System
losses and voltage deviations are compared.
Index Terms—Distributed generation, IEEE 37-node feeder, ra-
dial distribution analysis package, shipboard power systems.
I. INTRODUCTION
O NE of the key calculations for any system is the deter-
mination of the steady-state behavior, which is termed
as distribution power flow for a distribution system. Distribu-
tion automation needs fast and efficient power flow solutions.
The loading of a distribution feeder is inherently unbalanced
due to a large number of unequal single-phase loads and the
nonsymmetrical conductor spacing of three-phase underground
and overhead line segments. Due to these factors, conventional
power flow programs used for transmission system studies do
not show good convergence properties for distribution systems.
These programs also assume a perfectly balanced system so that
a single-phase equivalent can be used. The rise in power de-
mand has led to installation of small power units called dis-
tributed generators (DGs), which give high fuel flexibility. A
DG, if properly planned and controlled, can be beneficial to the
Manuscript received March 24, 2006; revised February 20, 2007. This
work was supported in part by NSF Career under Grant ECS 0196559 and
in part by the Office of Naval Research under Grants N00014-02-1-0623 and
N00014-03-1-0744. Paper no. TPWRS-00158-2006.
S. Khushalani and J. M. Solanki are with Mississippi State University,
Mississippi State, MS 39762 USA (e-mail: sakru1@yahoo.com; jigneshm-
solanki@yahoo.com).
N. N. Schulz is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762 USA
(e-mail: schulz@ece.msstate.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2007.901476
0885-8950/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
1019
power industry, help defer the costs of expansion, and have pos-
itive environmental impacts. A DG alters the power flow of the
system, thus impacting the overall system losses and voltage
profile of the system. A lot of work has been done for radial
power flow solution [1]–[10]. Cheng and Shirmohammadi [11]
address the load flow solution, incorporating DG for terrestrial
distribution systems. Initial development of such a power flow
for radial terrestrial distribution systems with distributed gen-
erator was addressed in [12]. Butler et al. [13] developed a
three-phase load flow algorithm for shipboard power systems
(SPS) and handle multiple sources by collapsing them into a
single source. A comparison of distribution power flows for
a balanced SPS is addressed by Lewis and Baldwin [14]. An
SPS is an ungrounded delta-connected system where genera-
tion, transmission, and distribution are tightly coupled. Anal-
ysis of SPS, due to its distinctive characteristics, leads to a fur-
ther complication in distribution power flow because of almost
the same nominal voltages of all generator nodes. This paper
details the power flow development for three-phase unbalanced
terrestrial distribution systems and SPS with distributed gener-
ator nodes modeled as PQ and PV nodes. Unlike the develop-
ment in [12], this development can handle multiple DGs and
allows for switching the DG mode from constant voltage to con-
stant power factor. Comparisons of the power flow results with
standard distribution power flow software are made, and lim-
itations of the standard software are addressed. An SPS load
flow solution is obtained. System studies showing the impact
of considerable DG penetration on steady-state behavior of the
California distribution feeder are shown. PQ and PV represen-
tations along with different penetration levels are incorporated
in the case studies.
II. COMPONENT MODELING
Because of the limited use of matrix operations, the ladder
iterative method is selected for the load flow. Reference [12]
reviews previous work related to the ladder iterative method.
This method involves two sweeps of calculations. In the forward
sweep, the end voltages are initialized for the first iteration, and
currents are calculated starting at the buses at the load end of the
radial branch and solved up to the source bus by applying the
current summation method. The backward sweep starts at the
source bus and calculates voltages using the current calculated
from the forward sweep until the load end of the radial branches.
The voltages from the backward sweep are used for the next it-
eration in the forward sweep calculations. Convergence occurs
when the calculated source voltage in the backward sweep cor-
responds to specified source voltage.
1020
TABLE I
COMPONENT MODELS
Modeling equations for various components of the distribu-
tion system are tabulated in Table I. Details of the models can
be found in [12] and [15]. Reference [16, Tables II and III] helps
to calculate the impedance of overhead lines from the given
phasing, space ID, material, and stranding. Reference [16, Ta-
bles IV–VI] used the tables to calculate the impedance of under-
ground concentric or tape shield cables. Transformers are mod-
eled as in [15], and only the updated equations are given here.
Four different types of transformer connections have been mod-
eled: delta-wye, wye-delta, wye-wye, and delta-delta.
The DG connections can be wye or delta. Depending on the
control, the DG may be set to output power at either constant
power factor for small DG or constant voltage for large DG.
Thus, two types of DG models need to be developed: constant
PQ, modeled as negative load with currents injecting into the
node, and PV nodes for which the calculations are as below.
1) Initially, the generator real power and positive sequence
voltage are specified. The reactive power is initialized to
zero. After a load flow has converged, the positive sequence
voltage magnitude mismatch at the PV node is checked
(1)
where of PV nodes.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, AUGUST 2007
2) If the voltage mismatch is within the specified tolerance,
the PV node voltage has converged to the specified value.
If a voltage mismatch at the PV node is not less than the
specified tolerance, then reactive power compensation Q
generated by that PV node in order to maintain the voltage
at specified value needs to be calculated as follows:
(2)
where is the positive sequence sensitivity impedance
matrix whose size is . The diagonal elements of this
matrix are the absolute value of the positive sequence of the
sum of series line impedances between each PV node and
the source node. The off-diagonal elements are the sums of
the common series line impedances between two PV nodes
and source node. is . Thus, is and
is the magnitude of reactive current injection. The DG can
operate in lagging as well as leading power factor mode.
Thus, the injection of current will depend on the error dif-
ference . If is positive, then reactive power is
supplied by DG, and is negative then reactive power
is absorbed by DG.
The reactive current injection is thus
(3)
where , and are the angles of the converged
voltage at the th node.
3) There is a limit to which the DG can produce reactive
power. This limit is decided in this program by setting the
power factor limits between 0.8 and 1, lagging/leading
(4)
If during computation the reactive power of any of the DGs
goes outside its limits, it is fixed at the limiting value, and
this node is now treated as a PQ node. The limiting value
is calculated as the three-phase reactive power limit; thus,
the total per-phase reactive current that the DG can inject
before its limit is hit is given by
(5)
4) These currents are then added, to the load currents and
currents calculated due to DG real power injection ,
at the th node
(6)
Load flow runs again to check the voltage magnitudes and
new . If after load flow the of the PV node con-
KHUSHALANI et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF THREE-PHASE UNBALANCED POWER FLOW 1021

Fig. 2. IEEE 37-node feeder.

Fig. 1. Flow chart for load flow with multiple DGs.

verted to PQ node is within the limits, the node is switched

back to PV node. Fig. 1 summarizes the solution algorithm.

Fig. 3. Shipboard Power System.

III. SYSTEM DESCRIPTIONS
The IEEE 37-node feeder is an actual feeder in California.
The data for the feeder were obtained from IEEE test case
archive for distribution feeders [17]. The diagram of the feeder
is shown in Fig. 2. The regulator was removed in order to
clearly see the effect of the DG on the system. The data are
characterized by
Loads—Spot loads, single-phase and three-phase bal-
anced and unbalanced loads, delta connected, constant
kW, kVAR, constant Z and constant I type;
Overhead and Underground Lines—Three-phase lines
with different spacing of phases;
Transformer—Substation and inline transformers are
delta-delta.
The 18-node SPS of an icebreaker ship was also analyzed for
which the data were obtained from [14]. The diagram of the Fig. 4. Renumbered Shipboard Power System.
system is shown in Fig. 3.
The system was represented and renumbered as in Fig. 4 so
that the analysis could be done using the developed unbalanced Overhead and Underground Lines—Three-phase
power flow software. The data are characterized by cables;
Loads—Spot loads, three-phase balanced loads, delta con- Transformer—Inline transformer is delta-delta with tap
nected, constant kW, kVAR; ratio of one.
1022
TABLE II
MODIFIED IEEE 37–NODE VOLTAGES
IV. RESULTS
A. Load Flow
The unbalanced load flow software was developed in
MATLAB. Using Radial Distribution Analysis Package
(RDAP) [18]), a commercially available distribution power
flow package, the authors compared results on a common
IEEE distribution test system [17] to validate the results of the
developed software.
1) Results of the original feeder (without DG) obtained by
the developed software and those obtained by RDAP are
compared. Voltages are as shown in Table II, and the cur-
rents are shown in Table VI in the Appendix. Results ob-
tained from the developed program closely match the re-
sults obtained from RDAP for the original feeder. The load
flow took one iteration to converge. RDAP can only handle
modeling a DG as a negative load, so results are not avail-
able for the PV model.
2) The voltages in per-unit and currents in amperes of 18 node
SPS are shown in Table III. Node 1 is slack node, and nodes
2–4 are modeled as PV nodes. The generation values are
shown in Table IV. The results were compared to results in
[14]. These results are obtained with 0.001 p.u. tolerance
for load flow as well as PV node convergence. The cables
are short, and even a very small voltage difference leads to
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, AUGUST 2007
TABLE III
SPS VOLTAGES AND CURRENTS
TABLE IV
SPS GENERATION
a large reactive current injection. The load flow took four
iterations to converge.
B. System Studies
The IEEE 37-node feeder [17] without the regulator was
studied under different DG modeling and varying penetration.
This study helps to demonstrate how the percentage of the
distributed generation as well as the loading on the system
coupled with the DG model affect the final voltage results.
This highlights the variation in results depending on the DG
model.
1) DG is connected to node 734.
2) DG penetration is defined as
% where
3) Anticipating the future load growth, DG penetration is in-
creased by increasing the real and reactive power of loads
in all the phases of nodes 727, 728, 729, 730, 731, 732, 733,
735, 736, 737, 738, 740, 741, 742, and 744. The penetra-
tion of DG is increased in steps of 3.5% up to 35%, which
corresponds to an increase of loading in steps of 5% from
5% to 50%, respectively
4) Fig. 5(a)–(c) shows a comparison of the voltage deviation
from 1 p.u. for different DG models and varying DG pen-
etration. The x-axis of Fig. 5(a)–(c) represents the node
number, the y-axis of Fig. 5(a) and (b) represents the per-
centage DG penetration, the y-axis of Fig. 5(c) represents
the percentage load increase, and the z-axis of Fig. 5(a)–(c)
represents the voltage deviation from 1 p.u.
Fig. 5(a) is obtained with a DG modeled as a constant
PQ node. The surface plot of Fig. 5(a) clearly indicates
the voltage deviation is low for the downstream nodes of
the feeder. Voltage deviation is high for nodes 744 and
728 because load at 728 is a three-phase load, and hence,
KHUSHALANI et al.: DEVELOPMENT OF THREE-PHASE UNBALANCED POWER FLOW
Fig. 5. IEEE 37-node feeder study with PQ and PV models and varying DG penetration level (a) PQ model. (b) PV model. (c) PV model with 50% penetration.
(d) Loss comparison.
the loading is increased in all three phases and 744 is di-
rectly connected to this node. The minimum voltage de-
viation is 0.01933 p.u. Fig. 5(b) is obtained with a DG
modeled as a PV node that switches to PQ node in case
of a reactive power limit hit. The same observations can be
made for surface plot of Fig. 5(b). The minimum voltage
deviation is 0.0169 p.u. Comparing surfaces of Fig. 5(a)
and (b) demonstrates that the difference in voltage devia-
tion for downstream nodes during low DG penetration is
not much. However, the difference in voltage deviation for
downstream nodes during high DG penetration is consid-
erable. Fig. 5(c) is obtained with the DG modeled as PV
node and constant penetration, i.e., 50%, which switches
to PQ node in case of a reactive power limit hit. However,
there was no reactive power limit hit for the load increases
shown. The surface plot of Fig. 5(c) clearly indicates that
the voltage deviation is low for the downstream nodes of
the feeder, but it increases with an increase in loading. The
minimum voltage deviation is 0.0016 p.u. Based on these
observations, for an increase in load, the voltage deviation
1023
is the least when DG is modeled as PV node with 50% DG
penetration.
5) Twelve cases as shown in Table V are defined as follows.
a) Cases 0–3 have 0% DG penetration.
b) Cases 4–6 have varying DG penetration but are mod-
eled as PQ node.
c) Cases 7–9 have varying DG penetration but are mod-
eled as PV node, which switches to PQ node in case
of a limit hit.
d) Cases 10–12 have 50% DG penetration but are mod-
eled as PV node, which switches to PQ node in case
of a limit hit. However, for all three cases, the limit
does not hit with this penetration level.
6) Fig. 5(d) shows the system loss comparison for all these
cases. Losses for cases 1–3, which correspond to no DG
penetration, are quite high. Losses for cases 4–6, which
correspond to the PQ model, are slightly higher than cases
7–9, which correspond to the PV model. For 50% DG pen-
etration, losses are much less. Losses for case 12 are more
than that of cases 10 and 11 due to an increase in loading.
1024
TABLE V
CASE SCENARIOS
Fig. 6. Real power contributions from DG and substation along with total real
power loading.
For a 50% increase in load, losses decrease by 3.4% due to
50% DG penetration.
7) Fig. 6 shows the real power generated by the DG relative
to that from the substation in all the 12 cases. This graph
is also a representation of the DG injection. For cases 0–3,
there is no DG penetration, and hence, the entire real power
contribution is from the substation. For cases 4–6 and 7–9,
the DG penetration increases, and hence, the substation
contribution decreases. For cases 10–12, DG penetration
is 50%, and thus, the substation contributes 50%.
8) The power flow took one iteration to converge for all cases
where the DG was modeled as a PQ node, whereas a max-
imum of three iterations were required for all cases where
DG was modeled as a PV node.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper describes a revised general three-phase unbal-
anced power flow algorithm that allows for the incorporation
of DGs modeled as either PV or PQ nodes. The algorithm was
tested on both an IEEE 37-node test feeder and an 18-node
icebreaker shipboard power system. Comparing the results
of the unbalanced power flow without DG with RDAP, an
established software package, demonstrates the accuracy of the
algorithm for an established test case. Advanced studies on the
IEEE 37-node test case with DG demonstrate the impact of DG
model type, size, and load variations on the results.
Further studies, including using the recently published paper
on induction machine models and the IEEE 34-node test case
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, AUGUST 2007
TABLE VI
MODIFIED IEEE 37-NODE CURRENTS
[19], will provide additional opportunities to study the impact
of various DG models on unbalanced power flow analysis.
APPENDIX
Table VI shows the modified IEEE 37-node currents.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. T. Baldwin from Florida
State University for the icebreaker shipboard power system data.
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Sarika Khushalani (S’06) received the B.E. degree
from Nagpur University, Nagpur, India, in 1998,
the M.E. degree from Mumbai University, Mumbai,
India, in 2000, and the Ph.D. degree from the
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
of Mississippi State University (MSU), Mississippi
State, MS, in 2006.
She is now an engineer working for Open Systems
International, Minneapolis, MN. She was involved
in research activities at IIT Bombay, Bombay, India.
Her research interests are computer applications in
power system analysis and power system control.
Ms. Khushalani received a Honda Fellowship Award at MSU.
1025
Jignesh M. Solanki (S’06) received the B.E. degree
from V.N.I.T., Nagpur, India, in 1998, the M.E.
degree from Mumbai University, Mumbai, India, in
2000, and the Ph.D. degree from the Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department of Mississippi
State University, Mississippi State, MS, in 2006.
He is now an engineer working for Open Systems
International, Minneapolis, MN. He was involved in
research activities at IIT Bombay, Bombay, India. His
research interests are power system analysis and its
control.
Noel N. Schulz (SM’00) received the B.S.E.E. and
M.S.E.E. degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University, Blacksburg, in 1988 and 1990,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, in 1995.
She has been an Associate Professor in the
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
at Mississippi State University, Mississippi State,
MS, since July 2001. Her research interests are in
computer applications in power system operations,
including artificial intelligence techniques.
Dr. Schulz holds the TVA Endowed Professorship in Power Systems Engi-
neering. She is an NSF CAREER award recipient. She has been active in the
IEEE Power Engineering Society and is serving as Secretary for 2004–2007.
She was the 2002 recipient of the IEEE/PES Walter Fee Outstanding Young
Power Engineer Award.