Power system simulation

Electrical power system simulation involves power system modeling and network simulation in order to analyze electrical power systems using design/offline or real-time data. Power system simulation software's are a class of computer simulation programs that focus on the operation of electrical power systems. These types of computer programs are used in a wide range of planning and operational situations for:

Applications of power system simulation include:

These programs typically make use of mathematical optimization techniques such linear programming, quadratic programming, and mixed integer programming.

Key elements of power systems that are modeled include:

There are many power simulation software packages in commercial and non-commercial forms that range from utility-scale software to study tools.

The load-flow calculation is the most common network analysis tool for examining the undisturbed and disturbed network within the scope of operational and strategic planning.

Using network topology, transmission line parameters, transformer parameters, generator location and limits, and load location and compensation, the load-flow calculation can provide voltage magnitudes and angles for all nodes and loading of network components, such as cables and transformers. With this information, compliance to operating limitations such as those stipulated by voltage ranges and maximum loads, can be examined. This is, for example, important for determining the transmission capacity of underground cables, where the influence of cable bundling on the load capability of each cable has to be taken also into account.

Due to the ability to determine losses and reactive-power allocation, load-flow calculation also supports the planning engineer in the investigation of the most economical operation mode of the network.

When changing over from single and/or multi-phase infeed low-voltage meshed networks to isolated networks, load-flow calculation is essential for operational and economical reasons. Load-flow calculation is also the basis of all further network studies, such as motor start-up or investigation of scheduled or unscheduled outages of equipment within the outage simulation.

Especially when investigating motor start-up, the load-flow calculation results give helpful hints, for example, of whether the motor can be started in spite of the voltage drop caused by the start-up current.

Short circuit analysis analyzes the power flow after a fault occurs in a power network. The faults may be three-phase short circuit, one-phase grounded, two-phase short circuit, two-phase grounded, one-phase break, two-phase break or complex faults. Results of such an analysis may help determine the following:

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