Development of advanced power system analog simulator

The digital simulation method has been utilized to analyze phenomena in power systems. Since different algorithms can be applied, depending on the phenomena to be analyzed, digital simulation allows for high-precision analysis. However, it also has a disadvantage: it produces continuous phenomena which occur in actual systems only fragmentarily. Thus, when discussing important projects at research centers such as IREQ in Canada, an analog simulator issued to continuously analyze the phenomena from the moment the fault occurs until steady state. These analog simulators, however, consist of only a few generator models. They are only effective for analyzing phenomena in small-scale systems and do not allow for analysis of phenomena in large-scale systems over a long period of time. For this reason, the Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) in cooperation with Hitachi, Ltd., and Fuji Electric Co., Ltd., has developed the world's largest power system simulator (APSA: Advanced Power System Analyzer). The simulator will be used to analyze the evolution of accidents in actual systems and to analyze continuous system phenomena over a long period. This paper describes an outline of the simulator.