Complete Case Auxiliary File Export Format Descriptions
PowerWorld’s Auxiliary File Format is very flexible in providing a mechanism for saving model information from PowerWorld Simulator. It also provides a great way to share information with others. This flexibility however has some downsides as puts additional burden on the user to know which things to save. Many tools within PowerWorld Simulator overcome this by including a button to click which writes out an Auxiliary File that saves all information related to that too. This includes tools as follows along with links to the PowerWorld Simulator help documentation on those tools.
While these built-in auxiliary file exports on those tools provides a way to store everything related to those tools, they also include all the results of those calculations. One thing that has been missing is a simple way in Simulator to get a description of all the input data related to a particular tool for sharing with others. Through work done with Columbia Grid recently, PowerWorld has augmented a long existing feature of Simulator called Auxiliary File Export Format Descriptions. Auxiliary File Export Format Descriptions has been available since 2006 and provides a mechanism of specifying a list object types (including associated filter) to define which objects to export data for, along with a list of the fields you would like to export (and the digits and decimal points). This gives a user of PowerWorld Simulator a great amount of flexibility to define their own format for exporting data. Again, however, a weakness of this flexibility is it puts a burden on the user to figure out all the various fields that are related.
To fix this, In March 2016 the Auxiliary File Export Format Descriptions dialog has been modified to give the user a button to choose to Create Format for Complete Case which then opens another dialog to choose which feature to export data for. When choosing to Create Format for Complete Case, a dialog will appear asking you to choose which types of input data to define for storage. Of particular interest immediately is the Network Model choice which is fully documented in a PDF document Record Specification and File Format for Specifying a Power Flow Case. This defines a text file which contains all the information needed to completely model the base objects defining the power system model.
The options as of the Version 19, build on March 4, 2016 included the following.
| Custom Info | Defines information for Custom Field Descriptions, Filter, Condition, Expression, String Expression, and Calculated Field objects |
| Network Model | Defines information which defines the network model. This is documented in detail in a special PDF document found at the following link: Record Format for a Power Flow Case |
| Contingency | Defines information related to contingency analysis tool. For example, this would include include CTG_Options_Value, CTG_AutoInsert_Options, CustomMonitor, Contingency Blocks, Global Actions, Remedial Actions, Contingencies and Contingency Monitoring Exceptions. It also includes special fields used by contingency analysis for some others objects (Area, Gen, Bus, Shunt) |
| Transient Models | Defined information for all the transient stability model objects |
| Transient | Defined input data related to performing a transient stability simulation. This includes options, plot information, what values to store to RAM, as well as Transient Contingency and Transient Limit Monitor objects. |
| Model Info | Defines information for special model objects. This includes Model Filters, Model Condition, Model Expression, Model String Expression and Supplemental Data and Contained Objects |
PowerWorld also plans to go through and define additional groupings of input data as hard-coded built-in Auxiliary File Export Format Descriptions. These hard-coded options will provide the user an easy way to automatically export the various input data related to particular features in the software. The intent of these new features in the Auxiliary File Export Format Description is to define input data structures for sharing data between PowerWorld users. The flexibility of the auxiliary file format is great, but these hard-coded definitions will provide the user with information about which fields go with which tools.
See the Complete Case Auxiliary File Export Format Description topic for more details.
May 13, 2016