Calculating line losses in smart grid: A new rule of thumb

The nature of distribution system losses, techniques on how to measure them, and program requirements to minimize their cost constitute a major concern for today´s competitive environment. On the other hand, development of smart grid technologies brings in massive data to power engineers and researchers. One of the challenges is how to utilize these data to help us better understand the electric grid. Although there are several limitations, the “1/3 rule” for losses, as one of the classic rule of thumbs, has been widely used by many utilities in practice. This paper proposes a new rule of thumb for losses calculation, which utilizes the data measured from smart grid to overcome the limitations of the “1/3 rule”. The use of this new rule and its advantages over the “1/3 rule” are demonstrated through a numerical example.