by Fred Steinhauser, OMICRON electronics GmbH, Austria
Simulations are powerful helpers. From computer games to electrical power networks to weather forecasts, they let us explore a “what if” and support our decision making.
The first simulation I came across was a lunar landing game at about 1975. It was implemented with 46 program steps on an HP-25 pocket calculator. The model covered the laws of physics for a falling object with breaking thrust in a gravity field. You started at a certain altitude with a given amount of fuel that you had to spend during the descent to bring the velocity close to zero at touchdown. In retrospect, it already represented the strong connection between gaming and simulation as established today.
Games have brought forward simulation quite a bit while becoming a significant business. There is much brainpower invested into making these games always more realistic and fluently running. And they set the benchmark for the power of personal computers. The Gaming PC defines a performance class of its own and boosts PC performance in general.
One striking example for the usefulness of simulations are the professional flight simulators for pilot training. How much would it cost to perform all of this in real planes in real flights? And it is possible to safely practice abnormal situations, which would be dangerous to replicate in reality.
The results of simulations are often the basis for decision making. Just think how many decisions are heavily based on weather forecasts, be it in agriculture or vacation planning. Weather forecasts are derived from extensive and complex simulations. Always refined weather models and data sources have impressively extended the prediction horizon. Running these simulations in reasonable time requires enormous processing power. The term supercomputer appears frequently in this context. Several from the TOP500 list of supercomputers are dedicated to weather forecasting.
For power system engineers, simulation is very much tied to calculating the electrical quantities in power networks under normal and abnormal conditions. It is the nutrient medium of a whole branch of our industry. Also here, advances in computing power have made simulation widely accessible. Much of what needed 19-inch racks with dedicated hardware 20 years ago can be sensibly executed on a single PC today. Advanced protection algorithms refuse to react properly on test signals which look artificial to them, as those produced by a simple sequence of states with abrupt changes of quantities. They demand realistic test signals from simulations. Going beyond testing a single relay to testing a protection system consisting of multiple devices, many consistent test signals must be calculated, which is only reasonably feasible with simulation. These methods are now no longer confined to laboratory environments and have become applicable on-site.
And the level for decision making in network control centers based on simulations, e.g., for checking how switching actions will affect the (N 1) criterion, will progress from TSOs to DSOs.
Simulations often deliver the substance for publications, but this is not always clearly stated upfront. Sometimes it takes a while to grasp that the content is not about real measurements or events. I wonder if this is because of carelessness or by purpose. At least, an outlook how the results of the simulation might be carried over to real applications is appreciated.
We don’t need to become so philosophical to argue if our live could be just a simulation. Or as I heard recently: if the simulation is so perfect that it can’t be distinguished from reality, it is the reality.
Biography:
Fred Steinhauser studied Electrical Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology, where he obtained his diploma in 1986 and received a Dr. of Technical Sciences in 1991. He joined OMICRON and worked on several aspects of testing power system protection. Since 2000 he worked as a product manager with a focus on power utility communication. Since 2014 he is active within the Power Utility Communication business of OMICRON, focusing on Digital Substations and serving as an IEC 61850 expert. Fred is a member of WG10 in the TC57 of the IEC and contributes to IEC 61850. He is one of the main authors of the UCA Implementation Guideline for Sampled Values (9-2LE). Within TC95, he contributes to IEC 61850 related topics. As a member of CIGRÉ he is active within the scope of SC D2 and SC B5. He also contributed to the synchrophasor standard IEEE C37.118.
