Application of holomorphic embedding to the power-flow problem

With the power system being increasingly operated near its limits, there is an increasing need for a power-flow (PF) solution devoid of convergence issues. Traditional iterative methods are extremely initial-estimate dependent and not guaranteed to converge to the required solution. Holomorphic Embedding (HE) is a novel non-iterative procedure for solving the PF problem. While the theory behind a restricted version of the method is well rooted in complex analysis, holomorphic functions and algebraic curves, the practical implementation of the method requires going beyond the published details and involves numerical issues related to Taylor's series expansion, Padé approximants, convolution and solving linear matrix equations.

The HE power flow was developed by a non-electrical engineer with language that is foreign to most engineers. One purpose of this document to describe the approach using electric-power engineering parlance and provide an understanding rooted in electric power concepts. This understanding of the methodology is gained by applying the approach to a two-bus dc PF problem and then gradually from moving from this simple two-bus dc PF problem to the general ac PF case.

Software to implement the HE method was developed using MATLAB and numerical tests were carried out on small and medium sized systems to validate the approach. Implementation of different analytic continuation techniques is included and their relevance in applications such as evaluating the voltage solution and estimating the bifurcation point (BP) is discussed. The ability of the HE method to trace the PV curve of the system is identified.