June 2005

PowerWorld Simulator Frequently Asked Questions

This documents answers some of the more common questions asked about PowerWorld Simulator (Simulator). We also encourage you to visit our website at www.powerworld.com and download a free 12-bus evaluation version of Simulator. What is PowerWorld Simulator? Simulator is an innovative power system analysis package, designed from the ground up to be extremely user-friendly and highly interactive. Simulator's main claim to fame has been its innovative use of graphics, including animated flows and color contours, to take a lot of the drudgery and mystery out of power system analysis. Simulator runs under Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, and XP. What are some of the potential uses of PowerWorld Simulator? Simulator has a number of uses in the corporate environment. Some of these include Helping to make better informed business decisions concerning the transmission system Give your marketers and other users an insight into the transmission system. Transmission bottlenecks are a costly but increasingly common part of doing business in the electricity market. By providing a fullfeatured power flow package, Simulator can take some of the mystery out of the transmission system, helping you make better informed business decisions. Economic Analysis Using Simulators Optimal Power Flow (OPF) and Security Constrained OPF (SCOPF), you can model electricity markets that utilize spot-pricing methodologies such as Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP) markets. With Simulator OPF and SCOPF and good input data to feed to these tools, you can replicate the dispatch and price calculations from these markets. In-house education Quickly provide non-technical or new employees with the power system basics and an understanding of many of the issues involved in industry restructuring. Customer education Effectively show your customers the issues involved in providing them competitive power. Executive presentations Clearly present many power system concepts using eye-catching graphics. Simulator's displays were designed to look good in presentations, and can be easily customized. Simulator has been recently used in a number of presentations to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (which is now a PowerWorld customer) and a number of state commissions. Operations Increase your knowledge of your system's operation. Many utilities will find Simulator to be a low-cost power flow that could be used in their operations and planning departments. Power Flow Analysis Simulator provides all the tools you need to perform advanced power flow analysis such as transmission system impact studies for a new generating station. This includes contingency analysis, Available Transfer Capability (ATC) studies, PV and QV Curve Studies (PVQV), Fault Analysis, and area interchange. Write your own code Simulators SimAuto add-on provides the ability to directly link Simulators solution engines with your own software. As long as your development language supports the COM interface (or the newer .NET technology), youll be able to communicate directly with Simulator.

June 2005 I'm new to power system analysis and do not yet own a power flow. Why should I buy yours? For most people Simulator is the clear choice both because of its user-friendly and highly graphical design, and its price. Our customers are usually amazed at how easy Simulator is to use. PowerWorld is the industry leader in power system visualization, which greatly enhances the speed with which you perform your analysis, and also when presenting your results to others. After adding the various add-on available with Simulator (OPF, SCOPF, ATC, PVQV, and SimAuto), youll have the features you need to perform serious steady-state engineering analysis! In all honesty we do want you to know that Simulator cannot solve every power system problem. What we've done is provide the features that will completely meet the needs of most users. And in doing so kept the price very reasonable. For highly specialized uses, such as transient stability, PowerWorld Corporation does not presently provide a solution. You'll need to supplement Simulator with other programs in these situations. I already own a power flow program. Why should I buy yours? Obviously if you're already satisfied with the usability, capability, and upgrade prices of your current package, and you seldom have to present your results to others, then you probably won't need to buy Simulator. But if not, we believe you should seriously consider Simulator. We've had a number of customers, including some of the largest utilities in the U.S. and a NERC reliability region, buy Simulator to supplement their existing power flows. What has consistently sold people is the innovative graphics, the user-friendly design and the low price. Is Simulator compatible with my existing power flow cases? Probably. Simulator provides import/export capability to the some of the most common power flow formats, including those used with the U.S. FERC 715 cases or the cases commonly obtained from the reliability councils or electricity market organizations. Therefore in all likelihood you can directly load your power flow data into Simulator. What advanced analysis modules are available? Contingency Analysis Automatically run through a list of 1000s of contingency and create a list of system overloads and voltage problems seen during these contingencies. Also compare the results of two contingencies runs. Unbalanced Fault Analysis Determine the A, B, and C phase currents and voltages after a fault in the system. Includes support for all unbalanced fault types as well as mutual impedances and fault impedances. Sensitivity Calculations Determine the linear sensitivity of line flows and voltages to power injections, transfers or line outages/insertions. This includes the calculation of Power Transfer Distribution Factors (PTDFs), Line Outage Distribution Factors (LODFs), Transmission Loading Relief Sensitivities (TLRs), and Generation Shift Factors (GSFs). You can also calculate Loss Sensitivities using the sensitivity tools. Optimal Power Flow (OPF) Optimally dispatch your system to remove transmission line overloads, while also calculating spot prices (also known as locational marginal prices). OPF is available as an add-on to Simulator. Available Transfer Capability Tool (ATC) Calculate ATC values in seconds using linear analysis techniques. ATC is available as an add-on to Simulator.

June 2005 PV and QV Curves Tool (PVQV) Study voltage stability problems in your system using PVQV. PVQV is available as an add-on to Simulator. Security Constrained Optimal Power Flow (SCOPF) Optimally dispatch your system to remove transmission line overloads under the base case and under any contingency, while also calculating spot prices (also known as locational marginal prices). SCOPF is available as an add-on to Simulator. What are some of the other features of Simulator? In addition to the power flow and visualization capabilities discussed earlier, Simulator has a number of other features. These include customizable and sortable list displays to view all or a subset of the various devices in the system (such as buses, generators, transmission lines, dc lines, switched shunts, areas and zones), the ability to easy scale the load or generation, the ability to create electrical equivalents, the ability to do economic dispatch for any area, the ability to graphically compare two different cases, the ability to compare the topology of two different cases, the ability to generate and graphically show PTDFs, the ability to graphically create or modify a case, and much, much more. Every year Simulator adds more and more features that make doing your job easier. We like to emphasis Simulators automatic generation control (AGC) features. Simulator allows you to dispatch areas using four different methods: Area Slack Control, Participation Factor Control (all generators participate proportional to their participation factors), Economic Dispatch, and OPF. This makes it easy for you to set up transfers between the areas in your case. Also, Simulator offers you the ability to create a Super Area and then dispatch a group of areas together, representing a power pool. If you dont want to dispatch by area, Simulator also allows you to perform participation factor control across each electrical islands as well. Because of Simulators easy of use, you can also utilize Simulator directly in your presentations. This feature makes Simulator an excellent training and demonstration tool. What power flow algorithm does it use? Simulator uses a full Newton-Raphson algorithm, with non-divergence control. Simulator can solve power systems with up to 100,000 buses (we've never seen a case larger than this -- let us know if you need more!), and an almost unlimited number of lines. Simulator has been used to solve FERC 715 cases for all of the NERC (North American Electric Reliability Council) regions. The largest cases weve seen so far have been 65,000 buses cases developed by combining the Eastern Interconnect, Western Interconnect and ERCOT systems in the United States into one large case. PowerWorld Simulator offers the user the Decoupled Power Flow and the DC power flow as solution options as well as a Robust Solution Process which iterated between the various solution options in an attempt to solve very ill-conditioned cases. The power flow algorithm incorporates common controls used in power flow analysis, including remote voltage regulation by LTCs, generators, and switched shunts, shared voltage regulation by generators, phase-shifting transformer control, DC line modeling, and MultiTerminal DC Line Modeling. How fast does it solve the power flow equations? Simulator's computational speed is on par with other high performance power flows that we've tested. To give you a feel for its speed, using a 266 MHz Pentium II computer on the 23,458 bus SERC FERC 715 case, Simulator takes 12.6 seconds and five iterations to solve the case when the first line in the case is opened (introducing a mismatch of over 1300 MWs). For the smaller Florida FERC 715 case, with 3585 buses, Simulator takes 1.2 seconds and four iterations to solve the mismatches caused by opening the first line in that case.

June 2005 Are the one-line diagrams easy to build? We think so! We've gone to great lengths to make it easy to build one-line diagrams. Features such as the ability to automatically insert lines between buses, and the ability to "anchor" objects to buses and lines make it easy to build and modify the one-lines (when an object is "anchored" to either a bus or a line, moving the bus or line on the one-line causes all the objects anchored to the object to be moved as well; this feature makes it quite easy to rearrange a one-line). We have also included the ability to import one-lines saved in a common power flow one-line drawing format. If you are still worried about building your one-lines, let us know and we can set them up for you for a very reasonable fee. Also, if you have geographic information regarding the location of the buses in your system, you can automatically insert the buses at the prescribed locations. Then just use Simulators built-in features to automatically insert lines, generators, and loads to create the rest of the one-line. Finally, Energy Visuals (a sister company of PowerWorld Corporation) develops and markets the product Transmission Atlas. Transmission Atlas provides very large one-line diagrams built from common models such as the WECC, ERCOT and NERC MMWG models of the United States. These one-lines include everything in the case at 69 kV and higher, and also all generation with maximum output of 50 MW and higher. How do I get animated flows on the one-lines? Can they be customized? Once the one-line diagrams have been built, you only need to toggle a field value (which is actually set "on" by default). Yes, the animated flows are easily customized. Customization includes there size, color, shape, whether they move or not, and their density. You can also show MW, Mvar, PTDF, or combiniations of these simultaneously on a one-line. Are zooming and panning supported on the one-lines? Yes, you can easily zoom and/or pan the one-lines. Also, objects on the one-line can be set so that they are only visible at certain zoom levels. This allows you to zoom into a portion of the one-line and show successively more detail as you zoom in. A find command is also available to allow you to easily locate a particular bus on the one-line. You mentioned contours earlier. What do you mean? Simulator has the ability to contour the system parameters on the one-line diagram. The output of the contouring is a plot very similar to the temperature contours seen in the newspaper, except a system parameter, not temperature, is being contoured. This feature can be extremely useful for rapidly assessing power system conditions in a large region. For example we have one client that has a contour of more than 4000 bus voltages which is updated from real-time data approximately every minute. Using this one-line in conjunction with our OPF add-on, you can use contouring to show price profiles throughout the U.S. Can the Simulator displays be pasted into other programs, such as PowerPoint? Yes. The one-line diagram contains a local-menu with a command to copy the display into the Window's clipboard. From there you can paste it just about anywhere, including into a word processing or presentation program. Is on-line help available? Of course! Simulator comes with comprehensive on-line help, as well as a 500+ page fully indexed manual.

June 2005 What is PowerWorld Viewer? PowerWorld Viewer is a free software package that we developed so that our customers could provide their results from Simulator to whomever they wish. As the name implies, Viewer allows users to view a case with all the ease of Simulator, including all the animation features. However users of Viewer cannot modify the case in any way. You can obtain a free version of Viewer, capable of viewing systems with up to 100,000 buses from the PowerWorld website at www.powerworld.com. How many other customers do you have? As of January 2004 we have over 350 different installations worldwide in more than 35 countries. Our customers include the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), some of the largest utilities in the world including the Electric Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), the Israel Electric Corporation Ltd, ESB National Grid in Ireland, GENER S.A. in Chile, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Commonwealth Edison, and Carolina Power and Light, MAIN (a NERC reliability region), an ISO, the U.S. Department of Energy, the US Justice Department, several state regulatory agencies, several consultants and power marketers, many other utilities, and a number of universities worldwide. What type of training and technical support is available? One of the advantages of Simulator is that you can get up and running with a minimum of training. Formal training however is also very useful and is available. We offer regular training courses about every 3 months in Champaign, Illinois. See the link on our website at www.powerworld.com for more information. PowerWorld staff is also available for training at your companies site. If youre interested in having Simulator training at your site please contact by telephone at (217) 384-6330 or by email at info@powerworld.com. Also, please note that every license comes with free technical support, available both by phone (217) 3846330 and by email at support@powerworld.com. OK, but how much does it cost? What about upgrades? A single user commercial license of Simulator is only US$8,000. PowerWorld also offers five optional Add-ons to Simulator: OPF, ATC, PVQV, SimAuto, and SCOPF. And the prices include upgrades and support for one year. Additional licenses are available at a substantial discount. Future upgrades are available for a yearly licensing cost of 20% of the list price. Simulator Base Package Version 10.0 Pricing Single License Additional Licenses 2-5 Site1 License (same as 5 licenses) $ 8,000 Each $ 4,000 $24,000 SimAuto $ 4,000 $ 2,000 $12,000

Simulator Version 10.0 Add-On ATC PVQV OPF SCOPF Single License $ 4,000 $ 4,000 $ 6,000 $ 2,000 Additional Licenses 2-5 $ 2,000 $ 2,000 $ 3,000 $ 1,000 Site1License (same as 5 licenses) $12,000 $12,000 $18,000 $6,000 * For more information on what constitutes a site, contact PowerWorld Corporation at sales@powerworld.com or by phone at (217) 384-6330. For information on what constitutes a site, contact PowerWorld Corporation at sales@powerworld.com or by phone at (217) 384-6330
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June 2005 Example Pricing 3 licenses to Simulator Base Package: Price = US$8,000 + 2* US$4,000 = US$16,000 Site License of Simulator with the OPF and ATC Add-ons Product Price Simulator Site License US$24,000 OPF Add-on Site License US$18,000 SCOPF Add-on Site License US$6,000 Total US$48,000 Site1 license of Simulator with all Add-ons Product Simulator Site License Price ATC Add-on Site License Price PVQV Add-on Site License Price OPF Add-on Site License Price SCOPF Add-on Site License Price SimAuto Add-on Site License Price Total Price Sub-Total $24,000 $12,000 $12,000 $18,000 $6,000 $12,000 $84,000

For use in university teaching and research only, we have a special 7,000 bus version of the base package for only US$1,000. This is a campus-wide license and also includes upgrades for one year. Alternatively university users can order the full commercial license for use in outside consulting or in performing short courses for a 50% discount. Are demo/evaluation versions available? Yes, you can download a free 12 bus version of Simulator from this website at www.powerworld.com. Just click Download at the top of the home page. You can use this version to evaluate many of the features of Simulator. However it is limited to solving cases with a maximum of 12 buses. Also, our free Viewer package contains much of the Simulator visualization capabilities and is also capable of loading systems with up to 100,000 buses. Finally, on a case by case basis we make evaluation versions of the full Simulator package available. How do I order? Simulator is simple to order. If you like you can place an order by credit card by calling (217) 384-6330. Or you can send a Purchase Order to PowerWorld Corporation, 2001 South First Street, Suite 203, Champaign, IL 61820 or via fax to (217) 384-6329. You may also contact us by email at sales@powerworld.com.