Find Parallel AC Branches

 

To access the Find Parallel AC Branches dialog go to the Tools ribbon tab, and choose Connections >Find Parallel AC Branches from the Other Tools ribbon group.

 

When clicking the Calculate button on this dialog, Simulator will determine groups of AC Branch objects that are connected between the same two ZBRBus groups. A ZBRBus group is managed internally by PowerWorld Simulator and represents a group of buses connected by very low impedance branches (branches below the ZBR Threshold specified in the Power Flow Solution: Advanced Options). These groupings of buses will then be identified by an integer. This identifying integer is written into the field specified on the dialog by the Label each group of branches choice field (which by default is Custom Integer 1). In addition to this a count of the number of branches in each group is written to the field specified on the dialog by the Number of branches per group choice field (which by default is Custom Integer 2). When the calculation is done these two fields are populated for every Branch object in the system.

 

The options on the right of the dialog present ways to filter the results on this dialog.

Options exist to restrict the results shown to only those branches that below to groups that have a Number of Branches between a minimum and maximum.

Options also exist to restrict results to groups that have different number of zero-impedance branches

Finally, the branches can be restricted to only Identify parallel transformers which have conflicting tap orientation. This means that there are parallel transformers which have a different From/To bus order. This is allowed, but any variable tap on a transformer is always on the FROM side of the branch, so if parallel transformers have their From/To terminals switched then the variable taps will be on opposite sides of the transformers. This is allowed in the software but would never be done in a real power system and likely indicates some input data errors.

 

The Dialog is sorted by the integer label field by default and when this is done shading is used to visually show the groups.