A Virtual Instrument for DC Power Flow Solution Using LabVIEW Language

In this paper, we present a method for solving the power flow problem by the method of DC power flow using the graphical programming environment of LabVIEW as a virtual instrument (VI) suitable for contingency analysis. The DC power flow greatly simplifies the power flow by making a number of approximations including 1) completely ignoring the reactive power balance equations, 2) assuming all voltage magnitudes are identically one per unit, 3) ignoring line losses and 4) ignoring tap dependence in the transformer reactance. Hence the DC power flow reduces the power flow problem to a set of linear equations. The effectiveness of the method developed is identified through its application to a 6 buses test system. The calculation results show excellent performance of the proposed method, in regard to computation time and quality of results.