Power flow analysis in islanded Micro-Grids via modeling different operational modes of DGs: A review and a new approach

In an islanded Micro-Grid (MG), the use of conventional power flow analysis is not effective as the voltage of slack bus and the frequency of the MG are assumed to be constant. Such assumption fails to consider the real characteristics of the islanded MG as all DGs are involved in providing the demand of active and reactive power as well as maintaining the frequency of the MG. In this paper, a review of power flow methods in power system is shown. Furthermore a novel algorithm, named GPSO-GM (Guaranteed convergence Particle Swarm Optimization with Gaussian Mutation), for the power flow analysis problem in an islanded MG is proposed. The problem is modeled without any slack bus by considering steady state frequency as one of the power flow variables. To model different control modes of DGs, such as droop, PV and PQ, in an islanded MG, a new formula for power flow equations is developed. PSO is adopted to minimize the mismatch of total active and reactive power. Two operators, mutation and guaranteed convergence, are added to PSO in order to help in finding an optimal solution and to assist in increasing the speed of the proposed algorithm as well as the accuracy of the results.