Set Generator Participation Factors

See Also

 

Participation factor control is another of Simulator’s mechanisms for distributing an area’s responsibility to serve its load, losses, and interchange. It is particularly well-suited to implementing automatic generation control (AGC) when you do not have good economic information for an area’s generators. With participation factor control, the amount of power that each generator contributes to meeting its areas load, loss, and interchange responsibilities is controlled by the size of its participation factor. The unit that has the largest participation factor contributes the most, and the unit that has the smallest participation factor contributes the least.

The Set Generator Participation Factors Dialog gives you a convenient way to define the participation factors for multiple generators. You can set the participation factor according to a number of different formulae and then apply this prescription to all generators in a specific area, all generators in a specific zone, all generators in the system, or all generators whose display filters are currently set to true.

To display the Set Generator Participation Factors Dialog, you first need to open the Area Information Dialog and switch to the Area MW Control Options page. The Area Information Dialog has a button labeled Set Participation Factors that is enabled only if the Participation Factor Control option is selected under the Area Control Options heading. Set the area on participation factor control by selecting the Participation Factors option, and then press the Set Participation Factors option.

The Set Generator Participation Factors Dialog is divided into two parts. The first part, which occupies the top half of the form, allows you to indicate how the participation factors should be calculated or set for each generator. Your options include:

 

Max MW Rating of Generator The participation factor for each generator is set to the generator’s maximum MW capability.

Difference Between Max and Current Output The participation factor for each generator is set to the generator’s reserve power, so that each generator participates in proportion to how much it has left to contribute.

Constant Value of The participation factor for each generator is set to the same hard-coded value.

File The participation factor for each generator is read from a file. The first line of the file should contain the keyword NUMBERS or NAMES indicating whether generators are identified by bus number or by bus name in the file. All subsequent lines should be comma-delimited and contain three fields: the number or name of the generator’s bus, the generator’s id, and the generator’s participation factor.

 

If you choose any of the first three options, you then must tell Simulator to what generators you want to assign the participation factors. To assign the participation factors to all generators in a specific area, select the All Generators in Area option, and then choose the area from the adjacent dropdown box. If you want to assign the participation factors to all generators in a specific zone, select the All Generators in Zone option, and then choose the zone from the adjacent dropdown box. If you want to assign the participation factor to all generators in the system regardless of their area or zone affiliation, select the All Generators in System option. Finally, if you want to assign the participation factor to just those generators whose display filter criteria evaluates to true, choose the All Generators With Valid Display Filters option.

If you instead chose to read participation factors from a file, only those generators whose factors you read from the file will have their factors set by this action. However, unless each generator’s associated area is set to control generator output using participation factor control, this information will be ignored. To make sure that each generator’s area is set to participation factor control, check the Set Corresponding Areas to Participation Factor Control box. Then, each corresponding area will be set to participation factor control.