SynGrid

Synthetic Grid Creation for MATPOWER

SynGrid is a package of MATLAB/Octave M-files for creating completely synthetic power system models for use with MATPOWER. SynGrid is based on code written by Dr. Zhifang Wang and her group, including Seyyed Hamid Elyas and Hamidreza Sadeghian at Virginia Commonwealth University, and further developed as part of the "Synthetic Data for Power Grid R & D" project under the ARPA-E Grid Data program in conjunction with Ray Zimmerman from Cornell University. SynGrid builds upon previous work [1, 2] by Wang, Scaglione, and Thomas as well as more the more recent works listed in the "Publications" section below.

System Requirements

• MATPOWER version 7 or later

  See the MATPOWER website for the system requirements for MATPOWER. For use on Octave, SynGrid's variations mode requires Octave 4.2 or later.

Installation

1. There are 3 primary ways to install SynGrid.

   • Option 1 - Install MATPOWER 7 or later by downloading a zip file from the MATPOWER website and running the MATPOWER installer. SynGrid is included and should also be installed.

   • Option 2 - Install MATPOWER from the MATPOWER GitHub and then install the MATPOWER Extras (which include SynGrid) manually, as described on the matpower-extras GitHub page.

   • Option 3 - Install SynGrid manually.

     • Clone the repository or download and extract the zip file of the SynGrid distribution from the SynGrid project page to the location of your choice. The files in the resulting mx-syngrid or mx-syngridXXX directory, where XXX depends on the version of SynGrid, should not need to be modified, so it is recommended that they be kept separate from your own code. We will use <SYNGRID> to denote the path to this directory.

     • Add the following directories to your MATLAB or Octave path:

       • <SYNGRID>/lib
       • <SYNGRID>/lib/t

2. At the MATLAB/Octave prompt, type test_syngrid to run the test suite and verify that SynGrid is properly installed and functioning. The result should resemble the following:

    >> test_syngrid
    t_sg_options.........ok
    t_sgvm_add_shunts....ok
    t_sgvm_data2mpc......ok
    t_syngrid............ok
    t_syngrid_vm.........ok
    All tests successful (174 of 174)
    Elapsed time 173.16 seconds.

Usage

To use SynGrid to create a synthetic 100-bus MATPOWER case and run a DC power flow with it, simply type:

    >> mpc = syngrid(100);
    >> results = rundcpf(mpc);

To specify options for SynGrid, such as progress output and loading level:

    >> sgopt = sg_options('verbose', 1, 'bm.loading', 'H');
    >> mpc = syngrid(100, sgopt);

And to save the resulting MATPOWER case to a file named 'my_syn_case100.m':

    >> mpc = syngrid(100, opt, 'my_syn_case100');

Documentation

There are two primary sources of documentation for SynGrid. The first is the SynGrid User's Manual, which gives an overview of the capabilities and structure of SynGrid. It can be found in your SynGrid distribution at <SYNGRID>/docs/SynGrid-manual.pdf and the latest version is always available at: https://github.com/MATPOWER/mx-syngrid/blob/master/docs/SynGrid-manual.pdf.

And second is the built-in help command. As with the built-in functions and toolbox routines in MATLAB and Octave, you can type help followed by the name of a command or M-file to get help on that particular function. All of the M-files in SynGrid have such documentation and this should be considered the main reference for the calling options for the top-level function, namely: syngrid.

Publications

1. Z. Wang, R. J. Thomas and A. Scaglione, "Generating Random Topology Power Grids," Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2008), Waikoloa, HI, 2008, pp. 1-9.
   doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2008.182

2. Z. Wang, A. Scaglione and R. J. Thomas, "Generating Statistically Correct Random Topologies for Testing Smart Grid Communication and Control Networks," Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 28-39, June 2010.
   doi: 10.1109/TSG.2010.2044814

3. Z. Wang and R. J. Thomas, "On Bus Type Assignments in Random Topology Power Grid Models," 2015 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Kauai, HI, 2015, pp. 2671-2679.
   doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2015.322

4. Z. Wang, S. H. Elyas, "On the Scaling Property of Power Grids," Proceedings of the 50st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2017), Waikoloa, HI, 2017, pp. 3148-3155.
   doi: 10.24251/HICSS.2017.381

5. S. H. Elyas and Z. Wang, "Improved Synthetic Power Grid Modeling With Correlated Bus Type Assignments," Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 3391-3402, Sept. 2017.
   doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2016.2634318.

6. S. H. Elyas, Z. Wang, R. J. Thomas, "On the Statistical Settings of Generation Capacities and Dispatch in a Synthetic Grid Modeling," 10th Bulk Power Systems Dynamics and Control Symposium (IREP'2017), Espinho, Portugal, Aug 27--Sep 1, 2017.

7. H.~Sadeghian, S. H.~Elyas, Z.~Wang, "A Novel Algorithm for Statistical Assignment of Transmission Capacities in Synthetic Grid Modeling," 2018 IEEE PES General Meeting, Portland, OR, Aug 5-9, 2018.
   doi: 10.1109/PESGM.2018.8585532

8. Z. Wang, M. H. Athari, S. H. Elyas, "Statistically Analyzing Power System Network," 2018 IEEE PES General Meeting, Portland, OR, Aug 5-9, 2018.
   doi: 10.1109/PESGM.2018.8586110

9. E. Schweitzer, A. Scaglione, "A Mathematical Programing Solution for Automatic Generation of Synthetic Power Flow Cases," Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on, 2018.
   doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2018.2863266

Citing SynGrid

We request that publications derived from the use of SynGrid explicitly acknowledge that fact by citing one or more of the following references:

Z. Wang, A. Scaglione and R. J. Thomas, "Generating Statistically Correct Random Topologies for Testing Smart Grid Communication and Control Networks," Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 28-39, June 2010.
doi: 10.1109/TSG.2010.2044814

S. H. Elyas and Z. Wang, "Improved Synthetic Power Grid Modeling With Correlated Bus Type Assignments," Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 3391-3402, Sept. 2017.
doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2016.2634318

E. Schweitzer, A. Scaglione, "A Mathematical Programing Solution for Automatic Generation of Synthetic Power Flow Cases," Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on, 2018.
doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2018.2863266

The SynGrid User's Manual should also be cited explicitly in work that refers to or is derived from its content. The citation and DOI can be version-specific or general, as appropriate. For version 1.0.2, use:

Z. Wang, H. Sadeghian, S. H. Elyas, R. D. Zimmerman, E. Schweitzer, A. Scaglione. SynGrid User's Manual, Version 1.0.2. 2024. [Online]. Available: https://matpower.org/docs/SynGrid-manual-1.0.2.pdf
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.11194332

For a version non-specific citation, use the following citation and DOI, with <YEAR> replaced by the year of the most recent release:

Z. Wang, H. Sadeghian, S. H. Elyas, R. D. Zimmerman, E. Schweitzer, A. Scaglione. SynGrid User's Manual. <YEAR>. [Online]. Available: https://matpower.org/docs/SynGrid-manual.pdf
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3238679

A list of versions of the User's Manual with release dates and version-specific DOI's can be found via the general DOI at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3238679.

Contributing

Please see the MATPOWER contributing guidelines for details on how to contribute to the project or report issues.

License

SynGrid is distributed under the 3-clause BSD license.

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