Hydro-Québec’s Experience of Implementing Power-system Node-Breaker Model for Planning Studies

To meet new needs and to respond to changes in the energy market, Hydro-Québec Trans Énergie (HQT) under-´ takes an important research project, named PRIAD, to improve existing tools for asset management and modelling system. The aim of this project is to assess the impact of the unavailability of equipment, such as breakers, sectionalizers, physical buses, power transformers, etc., on the performance of the Hydro-Quebec (HQ) network. Power system node-breaker (PSNB) models are of common use in operation, while bus-branch models are usually used in planning studies. PRIAD relies on a transmission system reliability simulator named PRISME. PRISME is HQ’s first planning application that requires a PSNB model. To this end, we have developed an algorithm to convert the traditional bus-branch network model to a detailed node-breaker representation. To generate the node-breaker model (PSS/E format), we used the state estimator file in IEEE format, the Energy Management System (EMS) network connectivity model (CIM format), and the state of switches from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) file.