Numerical Polynomial Homotopy Continuation Method to Locate All The Power Flow Solutions

Abstract

The manuscript addresses the problem of finding all solutions of power flow equations or other similar nonlinear system of algebraic equations. This problem arises naturally in a number of power systems contexts, most importantly in the context of direct methods for transient stability analysis and voltage stability assessment. We introduce a novel form of homotopy continuation method called the numerical polynomial homotopy continuation (NPHC) method that is mathematically guaranteed to find all the solutions without ever encountering a bifurcation. The method is based on embedding the real form of power flow equation in complex space, and tracking the generally unphysical solutions with complex values of real and imaginary parts of the voltage. The solutions converge to physical real form in the end of the homotopy. The so-called $γ$-trick mathematically rigorously ensures that all the paths are well-behaved along the paths, so unlike other continuation approaches, no special handling of bifurcations is necessary. The method is \textit{embarrassingly parallelizable} and can be applied to reasonably large sized systems. We demonstrate the technique by analysis of several standard test cases up to the 14-bus system size. Finally, we discuss possible strategies for scaling the method to large size systems, and propose several applications for transient stability analysis and voltage stability assessment.