Undergraduate Research in Transmission Tower Physical Design for Synthetic Electric Grid Cases

This paper describes methods developed in an undergraduate research project for determining realistic physical dimensions and configurations of transmission towers to correspond to synthetic electric grid cases. Synthetic grids, which are large-scale, realistic, public test cases for research and development, currently contain only electrical properties and geographic information about transmission towers, limiting the type of studies that can be conducted. By offering information about the physical aspects of transmission towers, this paper enhances the versatility of synthetic power grid cases. The methodology for determining a tower’s physical configuration based on data from a synthetic case uses backsolving and estimation from line parameter equations. The physical designs are validated against realistic data and the original synthetic grid case. Example results are shown for a 37-bus case.