Network modeling for distributed simulations of unbalanced power systems

With the increasing presence of distributed intelligence throughout power systems, the possibilities for distributed control and operation schemes are becoming progressively more attractive and feasible. Multi-phase distribution power flow is a tool which calculates the operating state of an electric power distribution system and is used to support all other planning and operation applications. This paper will derive models for the distributed analysis and simulation of distribution systems and will present their use in calculating the power flow solution using physically remote distributed processors. To perform the power flow, distributed analysis models for multi-phase distribution systems have been developed and are embedded in a distributed algorithm. These include network partition models and equivalent source and load models which are used to represent each of the subsystems in the distributed analysis. A distributed processor test bed has been designed to test the performance of the models in distributed simulations. Results will be presented which validate the accuracy of the proposed models and algorithm.