Development of a power flow software for distribution system analysis based on rectangular voltage using python software package

Abstract

This paper presents our work on developing a power flow software tool based on rectangular voltage coordinates using the Python scripting language. Rectangular coordinates show higher computational efficiency and better convergence properties than polar formulation. The proposed software tool benefits from Newton-Raphson method to solve the power flow problem. A graphical user interface is also developed and constitutes an initial step towards future development. Results of the proposed power flow software tool are compared to other open source software packages. The proposed work shows good convergence characteristic and proves to perform similarly to other available software tools.