An efficient method for power flow calculation applied to the reconfiguration of radial distribution systems

The analysis of distribution electrical systems has become of the outmost importance during recent time. The arrival of computer-based tools such as genetic algorithms, neural networks, expert systems, searching methods, etc., have favored the progress in planning, operation, control, investment cost and other tasks in distribution systems. Such tasks require a power flow method calculation in order to obtain suitable results for an efficient operation. In 1977 was proposed by the authors Lemus, Ruiz, Viramontes a very simple method (LRV method) to obtain the power flows in radial distribution systems. The method required a special ordering of the nodes before calculating the currents and voltages in a feeder. In this paper is shown a new version of this method, called LRSV (Lemus Ruiz Suchite Viramontes method). This method gets the nodal voltage solutions faster than all FBS (forward/backward sweep) existing methods until now. First is explained how LRV method works, next is explained how a renumbering process improve this method, and make it suitable to analyze every radial configuration. Finally some cases are shown in order to compare this method with those existing.