Application of a Three-Phase Load Estimation in a Real Distribution Feeder

Recently a practical and efficient Real Time Load Estimator (RTLE) was developed. Using only off-line information the RTLE provides off-line estimation of distribution system (DS) transformer loads and a measure of uncertainty of the estimation. It also refines these estimates by processing real-time measurements via a computationally efficient load flow algorithm, which uses the data structure called Node-Depth Encoding. To provide load values in a tractable computing time for real time DS applications, such as service restoration, all the development of the RTLE was conducted considering the trade-off between precision and computational efficiency. Hence, RTLE considers the balanced single-phase network model. To obtain more accurate load estimates this paper proposes a Real Time Three-Phase Load Estimator (RT-TPLE) for radial, unbalanced and asymmetric distribution feeders. Actually, this paper extends the RTLE to consider the three-phase network model. The RT-TPLE is confirmed on computation simulations performed on the real DS feeder of Ribeirao Preto city, Brazil. The performance of both the RTLE and the RT-TPLE are compared.