Parallel Computing Environments and Methods for Power Distribution System Simulation

Abstract -- The development of cost-effective highperformance parallel computing on multi-processor supercomputers 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 the 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 runtime 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 to a 128-processor shared-memory supercomputer. The paper offers an overview of the parallel computing environment and a description of the modification made to the PDSS model. The perfo...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2004
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Ning Lu, Z. Todd Taylor, David P. Chassin, Ross T. Guttromson, R. Scott Studham
• Keywords: Appliances, CORR 2004, Education, Power Distribution, Small Power Distribution