PNNL

Abstract

The development of cost-effective high-performance parallel computing on multi-processor super computers makes it attractive to port excessively time consuming simulation software from personal computers (PC) to super computes. The power distribution system simulator (PDSS) takes a bottom-up approach and simulates load at appliance level, where detailed thermal models for appliances are used. This approach works well for a small power distribution system consisting of a few thousand appliances. When the number of appliances increases, the simulation uses up the PC memory and its run time increases to a point where the approach is no longer feasible to model a practical large power distribution system. This paper presents an effort made to port a PC-based power distribution system simulator (PDSS) to a 128-processor shared-memory super computer. The paper offers an overview of the parallel computing environment and a description of the modification made to the PDSS model. The performances of the PDSS running on a standalone PC and on the super computer are compared. Future research direction of utilizing parallel computing in the power distribution system simulation is also addressed.