Robust and Efficient Power Flow Convergence with G-min Stepping Homotopy Method

TL;DR

This paper introduces an enhanced G-min stepping homotopy method for power flow simulations, achieving improved robustness and efficiency in solving large-scale nonlinear power systems.

Contribution

It extends the G-min stepping homotopy method from circuit simulation to power flow analysis, demonstrating superior runtime performance over existing methods.

Findings

Robust convergence for large-scale power systems.

Significant reduction in simulation runtime.

Effective handling of highly nonlinear power flow problems.

Abstract

Recent advances have shown that the circuit simulation algorithms that allow for solving highly nonlinear circuits of over one billion variables can be applicable to power system simulation and optimization problems through the use of an equivalent circuit formulation. It was demonstrated that large-scale (80k+ buses) power flow simulations can be robustly solved, independent of the initial starting point. In this paper, we extend the electronic circuit-based G-min stepping homotopy method to power flow simulations. Preliminary results indicate that the proposed algorithm results in significantly better simulation runtime performance when compared to existing homotopy methods.