ABSTRACT
Load flow analysis is concerned principally with the determination of the voltage magnitude and phase
angle of the buses, and consequently, the power flow in each of the transmission line of an electrical
network under a balanced three-phase steady state operating condition.
The various methods employed in solving load flow problems are: Gauss iteration technique, GaussSeidel iteration technique, Newton-Raphson technique and fast decoupled technique.
This project sets forth to provide solutions to an 8 bus bar system using Gauss -Seidel,Newton-Raphson
and fast decoupled technique. A computer program in MATLAB(Matrix Laboratory) has also been
developed to hasten the calculations and accuracy.
In addition, the effectiveness of each technique employed has been discussed in terms of the factors
that influence their reliabilities under varying conditions. These factors are:convergence speed, number
of iterations, ease of programming, storage requirements, accuracy, reliability and versatility.
Speed of convergence and number of iterations are the two most important factors considered when
choosing the best technique for solving load flow problems and comparisons have been made with the
conclusion that Newton-Raphson technique is the best compared with Gauss-Siedel and fast decoupled
techniques and a statement that fast decoupled technique is most effective where the network is large
and sparse.
The result outputs include voltage magnitude, phase angle, slack bus power, line currents, power loss in
each line and the total power loss.