Power Flow Analysis (2): Types of Nodes; Newton-Raphson Method

In this video we discuss how to actually solve the power flow equation outlined in part 1 of this series. We first introduce different types of nodes - PQ buses, PU buses, and slack buses, according to the known and unknown variables on the nodes. Then, we introduce the Newton-Raphson method to solve the nonlinear power flow equation.

The Newton-Raphson method is basically the foundation of all iterative methods to solve for the power flow equation, and many methods, whether based on it or not, are designed to tackle some of its shortcomings (sensitive to the initial guess and computation burden of the Jacobian matrix for every iteration). We will discuss these methods in the later videos.

Parts of the Video:
00:00 0. Main Title
00:17 1. Power Flow Equation in Summation Form
01:13 2. Power and Voltage as Complex Variables
03:09 3. Types of Nodes in a Power System
04:34 4. Examples of types of Nodes
05:30 5. Procedure of the Newton-Raphson Method
06:30 6. Calculation of the Jacobian Matrix
07:04 7. Problems of the Newton-Raphson Method

Information of the series “System Science of Energy Transition”:

Further Readings:
The graph on the right at 05:22 is adapted from figure 39 of a NREL report in March 2017: “Demonstration of Essential Reliability Services by a 300-MWSolar Photovoltaic Power Plant”. Read the report from the following link.

Software used for making this video:
- Audacity was used for eliminating the white noises of the recordings
- Blender was used for video editing
- Microsoft Powerpoint was used for making the slides