The present disclosure relates to distributed line flow processing for a network having nodes with branches coupling adjacent ones of the nodes and components coupled to the nodes. In one embodiment, the disclosed process includes receiving an objective function having component variables, nodal output variables and branch flow variables for the network. Next, the component variables, nodal output variables and branch flow variables are initialized with initial values, and then values for the branch flow variables are calculated using a distributed Newton method. Finally, values for the component variables and the nodal output variables are calculated using values calculated for the branch flow variables until the values of the component variables, the nodal output variables, and the branch flow variables converge within a predetermined threshold range.