A fast power flow method for radial networks with linear storage and no matrix inversions

This paper presents a modified direct approach for the forward/backward sweep power flow method. Taking advantage of the special topological characteristics of the radial network, an algorithm with linear storage complexity is defined. These features are summarized in the incidence matrix, which becomes a lower triangular matrix after the vertex ordering. This new formulation allows to solve linear systems of equations instead of explicitly inverting matrices during the iterative process, leading to a lower computational burden. Therefore, the proposed method is time and memory-efficient. The results show that the proposed method improves the storage and time complexity without any loss of accuracy, making it a robust and efficient method.