Patent ID: 7584066

Claim:
A method for determining a power flow in an electrical distribution network comprising: determining respective feeder apparent powers of a plurality of electrical distribution network feeders receiving electrical power from a supply node of an electrical distribution network responsive to respective feeder currents in the feeders and a node voltage of the supply node; generating a system of node equations having feeder power factor angles of each of the feeders as variables and relating the feeder apparent powers with respect to a supply node active power, and a supply node reactive power, wherein the system of node equations is defined as follows: P inj =S 1 cos φ 1 +S 2 cos φ 2 +S 3 cos φ 3 + . . . +S n cos φ n, Q inj =S 1 sin φ 1 +S 2 sin φ 2 +S 3 sin φ 3 + . . . +S n sin φ n wherein n is a positive integer that represents a number of feeders, φ n represents a power factor angle for an n th feeder, S n represents apparent power for the n th feeder with respect to injected active power P inj and injected reactive power Q inj ; solving the system of node equations for at least one of the feeder power factor angles; and using the feeder power factor angle for determining a power flow in the electrical distribution network.