Performance Assessment of Kron Reduction in the Numerical Analysis of Polyphase Power Systems

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of Kron reduction on the performance of numerical methods applied to the analysis of unbalanced polyphase power systems. Specifically, this paper focuses on power-flow study, state estimation, and voltage stability assessment. For these applications, the standard Newton-Raphson method, linear weighted-least-squares regression, and homotopy continuation method are used, respectively. The performance of the said numerical methods is assessed in a series of simulations, in which the zero-injection nodes of a test system are successively eliminated through Kron reduction.