Power Flow¶
The Tool provides power flow support by leveraging PowSyBl, a 3rd-party open source component dedicated to electrical grid modelling and simulation.
The primary use case of power flow function is model quality assurance. Historically, it takes a lot effort for grid operation coordinators to collect models from data providers and build an assembled regional model to support various business processes, ranging from day-ahead operational study to 10-year system development. The process normally involves multiple iterations between data providers and coordinators. It is expected that a solid power flow support in the Tool will significantly facilitate this process.
More specifically, model providers would like their models to be solved by a 3rd-party power flow tool before submitting to their coordinators. This will help them identify the potential modeling issues that couldn’t be revealed by model validation. Some of these issues include:
- Incorrect and unrealistic equipment parameters,
- Unbalancable load demand,
- Unreachable regulation targets,
- …
As a reality-based example, the tool that generated CIM/XML increased line charging (ACLineSegment.bch) by 100 times. This caused the power flow to diverge at the data consumer site. This kind of modeling error could be caught by a power flow tool. A diverged power flow normally means modeling errors or setting errors. The key performance indicators (KPIs) such as max bus mismatch generated by a power flow tool enable users to discover this kind of deeply-hidden modeling/setting errors. From this perspective, power flow support serves as a deep-validation function.
The other potential use cases include:
- Supporting Model Management - the power flow batch process can be used to scan M3, a 3-D modeling space, to identify the potential grid operation security concerns.
- Supporting Operational Planning and Coordinated Security Analysis (CSA), including analysis of contingency, scheduled outage, power transfer, remedial action, etc. https://www.entsoe.eu/Documents/CIM_documents/Grid_Model_CIM/CSA_Data_Exchange_Specification_v2.0.pdf
- Integrated with utility operational systems, including EMS, Data Historians, OMS, etc.
To get started: set up the Power Flow Environment and then take the Power Flow Tutorial labs.