A Power Flow Homotopy-based Solver emanating from a Flat Start Estimate

This paper employs a homotopy-based technique to determine the power flow problem (PFP) solution. The problem is formulated so that the initial estimate for the PFP coincides with the initial solution of the homotopy problem (easy problem”). For this aim, a fictitious network is fit for the initial step of the homotopy path and eliminated at the end (difficult problem”), which also coincides with the final step to obtain the PFP solution. Along the homotopy path, only the classical Newton-Raphson (NR) is used to compute each set of states. Simulations considering several models using ill-conditioned systems, including a 70k-bus system, and departing from a flat start estimate are employed to demonstrate the solver's efficacy.