An Exact Componentwise Voltage-Monotonicity Threshold for Radial Distribution Networks

Abstract

Distribution-network operating tools routinely assume that voltage magnitudes respond monotonically to nodal power injections, so that checking the extreme points of an operating envelope certifies its interior. That the voltage may instead fall under rising active export is documented -- measured on feeders and explained through phasor loci and P-V maxima -- but its exact onset has not been placed in closed form. We derive the exact sign of the single-branch voltage sensitivity and show that componentwise monotonicity in active power reverses precisely at p* = g v, while the reactive threshold q* = b_a v sits at short-circuit scale and is physically unreachable; the two differ by the branch x/r ratio. A test protocol whose scenario grid, tolerances and acceptance criteria were fixed before the runs, on two independent networks (1594 cells, 26000 ordered injection pairs), corroborated on a second real network and a conductance sweep, places every observed violation at the low-R/X station branch, and a per-cell attribution separates threshold crossings from a second, loss-mediated coupling that reverses sensitivities while every individual branch margin is still positive. Behind a regulated busbar the entire protocol passes, so a network-scale sufficiency condition is stated as an explicit, evidence-supported hypothesis. Because every power-flow model affine in the injections is componentwise monotone by construction, screening built on such models cannot detect this failure. The threshold reads operationally as a per-branch monotonicity margin, giving distribution operators a closed-form flag for where extreme-point screening ceases to be valid.