A Comparison of Electric Power Tracing Methods Used in Deregulated Power Systems

Tracing the flow of electricity becomes an important issue under transmission open access. In practice, power flow follows the physical laws of electricity and therefore it is not straightforward to map out how the participants make use of the system. This paper focuses on presenting an analysis of the performance of major power tracing methods based on proportional sharing principle namely the graph, node and commons method. A number of simulations are performed based on their assumptions to critically compare their performance and validate the exactness of each method. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are stated.