Parallel Transient Stability Simulation Based on Multi-Area Thévenin Equivalents

In this paper the diakoptics-based branch-tearing method for solving large electric networks, known as the Multi-Area Thévenin Equivalents (MATE), is combined with the alternating method for parallelizing the transient stability simulations of bulk power systems. In the proposed framework, equations associated with dynamic and static devices and passive network are distributed among computing processes. The paper discusses an implementation of the parallel transient stability simulator along with results for two power systems with about 4,000 and 15,000 buses, both based on the Brazilian Interconnected Power System. Performance metrics for assessing the effectiveness of the proposed methodology are also presented and discussed. In order to validate the implementation, the results are also compared with those from an industrial-grade transient stability program, ANATEM developed by CEPEL.