New User-Friendly Software Application to Simulate and Visualize The Distribution System Operation

This paper presents a new software application that simulates and visualizes the operation of the electrical distribution system (DS) and so helps understand various process occurring in the DS. The application runs on Windows operating systems and consists of five parts: DS modeling subsystem, DS parts' parameters settings subsystem, DS operation simulation scenario creation subsystem, DS operation simulation visualization subsystem, and mathematical core. This application is the result of an effort to connect two areas of engineering research that have not yet been well connected, particularly the power system simulation software development and the data visualization software development. This application features a graphical user interface that enables users to create a DS operation simulation easily and quickly, and to understand and easily read many values during DS simulation visualization. We aimed at user-friendliness and quick-adjustability of the application. The accomplishment of these goals was tested by a group of experienced university students in the course of one year. The students also participated in a survey. The application was created using the programming language Matlab.