An Open Source Power System Simulator in Python for Efficient Prototyping of WAMPAC Applications

TL;DR

This paper introduces an open source Python-based power system simulator designed for rapid prototyping of WAMPAC applications, emphasizing transparency, expandability, and real-time interaction for research and education.

Contribution

It presents a flexible, open source simulation tool in Python that enables real-time emulation and easy sharing, fostering innovation and learning in power system applications.

Findings

Simulation runs in real-time for small to medium grids

Allows interactive user feedback during simulation

Can be shared and edited online via Python interpreters

Abstract

An open source software package for performing dynamic RMS simulation of small to medium-sized power systems is presented, written entirely in the Python programming language. The main objective is to facilitate fast prototyping of new wide area monitoring, control and protection applications for the future power system by enabling seamless integration with other tools available for Python in the open source community, e.g. for signal processing, artificial intelligence, communication protocols etc. The focus is thus transparency and expandability rather than computational efficiency and performance. The main purpose of this paper, besides presenting the code and some results, is to share interesting experiences with the power system community, and thus stimulate wider use and further development. Two interesting conclusions at the current stage of development are as follows: First, the simulation code is fast enough to emulate real-time simulation for small and medium-size grids with a time step of 5 ms, and allows for interactive feedback from the user during the simulation. Second, the simulation code can be uploaded to an online Python interpreter, edited, run and shared with anyone with a compatible internet browser. Based on this, we believe that the presented simulation code could be a valuable tool, both for researchers in early stages of prototyping real-time applications, and in the educational setting, for students developing intuition for concepts and phenomena through real-time interaction with a running power system model.