Enhancements and New Features in Simulator 12.0

Power Flow Solution

• Speed improvements
• 5-10% speedup due to change in Jacobian storage
• Doubled speed of coordinated transformer tap switching
• 5-10% speedup due to change in memory manager
• New global solution options
  • Transformers can be stepped based on coordinated sensitivities (the only option available before) or self-sensitivity
  • Three methods now available for sharing generator vars for remote regulation
    • Allocate using Remote Regulation % (PTI behavior; previously, this was the only option available)
    • Allocate so all generators are at the same [min..max] range (Areva EMS behavior)
    • Allocate using sum of Remote Regulation % (GE behavior)
  • Minimum per unit voltage for constant current loads
• New object-specific options
  • Area Interchange control by user-specified Injection Group
  • Allow switched shunts to switch during the inner power flow loop, which allows discrete switched shunts to be treated as PV buses initially and then revert back to discrete shunt values after the initial solution
  • For each transformer, a new field called “Regulation Range Target Type” has been added with the following options: Middle of Reg Range and Max/Min of Reg Range
• More error checking
  • Ensure that parallel transformer regulation ranges don’t overlap
  • Check for values of Line Drop Impedance that are too large
  • Notification of transformers that are turned off control due to a large regulation range
  • Ensure that a new slack bus is chosen if all generation at the slack bus is taken out of service
• Solution diagnosis features
  • Improved display for showing which devices remotely regulate a particular bus (shows local and remote generators, tap-changing transformers, and shunts now)
    • Appears on Run Mode Bus dialog
    • New Case Information Display field for buses – Remotely Regulators
  • Bus field “Type” has been improved to show 6 new descriptive strings to better help in understanding the case setup
    • Type column is shown by default on Mismatches display now
    • Slack, PQ, and PV still exist as bus types
    • New descriptive strings:
      • PV (Remote Reg Master)
      • PQ (Remote Reg Slave)
      • PQ (Continuous Shunts at Var Limit)
      • PQ (Gens at Var Limit)
      • PQ (Remotely Regulated at Var Limit)
      • PQ (Remotely Regulated)
  • Zero-impedance branch groupings added to Buses Case Information Display as “Zero Impedance Branch Bus Neighbor List” and “Zero Impedance Branch Primary Bus” fields

Display Auxiliary Files (*.axd): Text-Based Editing of Oneline Diagrams

• New *.axd file format (display auxiliary file format)
  • Can now save, load, and create onelines using a purely text-based format
  • Allows users to programmatically create and edit oneline diagrams
• Display objects case information improved
  • Allows editing of oneline via a Oneline Information Display
  • Supports cut/paste to/from Excel of oneline information

Oneline Enhancements

• New pie charts and gauge objects for the following elements:
  • Areas
  • Buses
  • Generators
  • Injection Groups
  • Owners
  • Substations
  • Super Areas
  • Switched Shunts
  • Transformers
  • Zones
• Oneline links can now open an AUX file directly
• URL links can now run Windows batch commands
• Custom Colors are now properly managed across Simulator
• Added ability to specify with a layer whether or not objects are selectable in Edit Mode (great for use with borders)
• The hints that appear when hovering the mouse over an object may now be customized by the user
• Dynamic Formatting now includes lookup tables to make the feature more versatile
• Enhanced GIS Support
  • More support for reading and writing GIS shapefile information – ability to bring up shapefile DBF data from within Simulator
  • Added ability to draw a “Measure Line” which calculates the approximate distance between two points
  • Auto-insert buses and substations using latitutude/longitude information stored with bus and substation data objects
• Multi-section lines
  • New multi-section line fields are available
  • New multi-section line pie charts are available
  • Auto-insert transmission lines support
  • Bus Palette support
  • Bus View and Sub View support
  • Power Flow List and Quick Power Flow List support
  • Ability to open a single section of a multi-section line (“mixed statuses”)
• Added the ability to have the thumbnail view follow where the mouse is pointing. This allows a "reverse thumbnail" where the thumbnail image is actually zoomed in, while the main oneline is an overview.

Dialog Improvements

• For dialogs with a large number of tabs, a new layout is used that is easier to navigate (see Simulator Options for an example of this new dialog style)
• More clearly show which fields may be edited by using a white background for editable fields and a grey background for uneditable fields
• Consistent display of label, area, zone, owner, and substation information across all dialogs

User Interface Improvements

• Error messages have been cleaned up to prove more readable messages
• Added ability to timestamp all messages in the message log
• Added Windows Registry option to prevent user modification of the toolbars and menus
• Case Summary enhanced (parses number of elements of all types)
• Complete overhaul of transformer impedance corrections table to make it more user-friendly

Data Object Improvements

• Interface improvements
  • New elements supported
    • Interfaces can include other interfaces
    • Multi-section lines can be added to an interface
  • Can now monitor an interface in both directions
  • Can clone elements from another interface
• New injection group elements supported
  • Switched shunts can be added to an injection group
  • Injection groups can include other injection groups
• Added memo fields for all objects and displayed on all dialogs
• Added multiple line shunts at each end of a transmission line. Each line shunt can have its own status
• Objects labels can be used in auxiliary files to define objects
  • E.g., you can use “BRANCH label OPEN” in Contingency AUX file

Case Information Displays

• When typing in data you may append the “@” symbol to copy one column to another
  • E.g., type “@BusPUVolt” into the generator setpoint voltage and it will change the setpoint to the terminal voltage
• When sending to Excel, a dialog now appears asking which worksheet to send the data to
• Enhanced Interface and Injection Group Case Information Displays have more flexibility in showing elements
• Interfaces and Injection Groups can now be created via selection of generators, loads, and shunts from a Case Information Display
• Added search ignoring filtering and display/column options
• Removed limitation of 5 conditions for filters and sorting.
• Modified filter dialogs to make adding and deleting conditions simpler

New Tools

• New Sensitivity Tools
  • Single meter, multiple transfer
  • Singe transfer, multiple meter
  • Self-sensitivity
  • LODF (Line Outage Distribution Factor) Matrix
• Line Loading Replicator
  • Specify buyer and seller injection groups
  • Specify a desired flow on a branch or interface
  • The tool tells you how much to transfer between the buyer and seller in order to achieve the desired flow
• Line Impedance Calculator – calculates per-unit line impedances based on physical spacing, conductor type, and distance

PV and QV Curve Enhancements

• Tracking of limits hit during PV Curve trace
• Tracking of dV/dP during PV Curve trace
• New method for ramping reactive power during PV curve trace relative to constant power factor

ATC (Available Transfer Capability) Enhancements

• Added a new option on how the ATC Solution Method “(IL) the Full CTG Solution” is processed called “Force all transfer ramping to occur in pre-contingency states and repeat full CTG Solutions”. Prior to this new option, the Full CTG solution would only occur once and extra ramping would occur after that
• Ability to specify that post-contingency linear calculations not include the effect of phase shifters
• Added a script command which would perform the same action as done on the ATC multi-scenario results for Write to Excel
• For multiple ATC scenarios, now have the option of change line rating A and B (previously, only line rating A was available)
• Added a better indication of when the “(IL) then full CTG” solution method encounters an unsolvable power flow when ramping out the pre-contingent state

Contingency Analysis Enhancements

• Dead bus reporting
• dV/dQ change reporting
• Cloning and merging of contingencies
• Added post-contingency voltage limits where can be different than normal voltage limits

File Format Support

• PowerWorld Binary File (PWB) version 12
  • Added ability to password protect PWB files
  • Added ability to write out unlinked elements in PWB file after reading them from an AUX file
• PTI RAW file support
  • When reading RAW files that contain loads assigned to other areas, we now insert transactions to represent these loads
  • Can create Injection Groups by reading the Participation portion of the SUB files
• GE EPC file support
  • Simulator stores all GE EPC data now. User may also edit all EPC data from within Case Information Displays
  • Added ability to save and read EPC files “with options”
    • Filter by area / zone / owner filters
  • Added ability to append to a case using an EPC file
  • For an EPC file, now assume all generators with only 2.0 MVar of range have AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation) disabled
    • Using File, Open, “EPC with Options”, user may specify this value

Auxiliary File SCRIPT Changes and SimAuto Changes

• New script commands
  • ZeroOutMismatches
  • CalculateVoltSelfSense
  • CalculateVoltToTransferSense
  • SetCurrentDirectory
  • WriteTextToFile
• Added procedure ChangeParametersMultipleElement to SimAuto