Electric Grid Test Case Repository

This dataset download includes six dynamics cases for the Texas2k system (Series24), a synthetic Texas case with scenarios varying in loading levels, renewable penetration, inertia, and inverter controls. You can download the latest version of these cases from the Texas A&M team here.

A repository of diverse electric grid test cases, varying in size and characteristics, has been developed for application in power system studies. The purpose of this repository is to provide public access to realistic electric grid models of varying sizes to help facilitate research and education. This repository is regularly updated with new test cases or modifications of existing ones as a result of continuing research. This paper outlines the necessity for this repository, details the electric grids it contains, and provides explanations for the types of cases, highlighting their relevance to different applications.

S. Kunkolienkar, F. Safdarian, J. Snodgrass, A. Birchfield, T. Overbye, “A Description of the Texas A&M University Electric Grid Test Case Repository for Power System Studies”, 2024 IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference (TPEC), College Station, TX, Feb. 2024. View

On April 8, 2024 North America will experience a total solar eclipse that will pass over areas with high levels of solar generation. This video shows a visualization of the simulated impact of this event on the US solar PV generation. The simulations and visualizations were done using PowerWorld Simulator Version 23 with the solar generation based on EIA 860 information.  View Video .

This dataset contains weather data for North America from 1940 to almost present (5 days from current date), along with future forecasts. The data is provided in the PoWer Weather (PWW) format, allowing it to be easily used in power system analysis software. You can download all the weather data here.

This video shows a visualization of the simulated impact of the October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse on the US solar PV generation. The simulations and visualizations were done using PowerWorld Simulator Version 23. View Video

This 6717 electric node, 2459 gas node test case represents a synthetic network on the geographic footprint of Texas. The electric transmission case is provided in a variety of formats including PowerWorld, PSSE, and PSLF, while the gas case is provided in a human-readable JSON format. You can download the latest version of this case from the Texas A&M team here.

This test case represents a synthetic (fictitious) transmission + distribution network on the geographic footprint of Texas. The transmission case is provided in a variety of formats including PowerWorld, PSSE, and PSLF, while the distribution case is provided in OpenDSS format. You can download the latest version of the Texas Combined T&D dataset from the Texas A&M team here.

This 37-bus synthetic network covers the geographic footprint of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and serves 1100 MW of peak load. This case is synthetic and does not model the actual grid. The case is provided in PowerWorld format, including binary (PWB/PWD), PowerWorld auxiliary text format, Matpower format, PSS/E raw format, and PSLF epc format. Note that the size of this case allows it to be used with the educational version of PowerWorld. You can download the latest version of the Hawaii40 dataset from the Texas A&M team here.

ARPA-E’s Performance-based Energy Resource Feedback, Optimization, and Risk Management (PERFORM) program seeks to develop new grid management systems that represent the relative delivery risk of individual electricity generation resources and balance the collective risk of all assets across the grid. The program has funded twelve project teams across the country to build software platforms that optimize grid management as the penetration of variable renewable resources continues to increase. However, the difficulty of obtaining and sharing sensitive transmission grid data has historically presented a challenge for innovation.

To overcome this challenge, PERFORM also funded leading power systems modelling groups at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Princeton University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Wisconsin to generate realistic synthetic datasets for the power grid. These datasets served as a basis for the twelve optimization teams to develop their platforms.

The dataset teams have now come together to make their data publicly available via the links below. Each unique dataset can be used for a variety of applications specified by each respective team. ARPA-E hopes that making this data widely accessible will spur additional innovation in grid management beyond the PERFORM program.

You can download the latest version of the Performs datasets here.

Effectively communicating the behavior of an electric grid is an important pursuit in education, research, and industrial applications. Texas A&M University researchers present considerations for visual storytelling as a means for interpreting and communicating the behavior of the grid for simulations ranging in duration from seconds to days. By framing the issue of communicating the vast amounts of data associated with wide-area transmission grid operation as a story to tell, those tasked with presenting this data are encouraged to consider what makes an effective story and, in turn, create compelling and understandable stand-alone narratives. Demonstrations are presented for cases of various scales including a 37-bus case, a 2000-bus case, and a 24,000- bus case.

J.L. Wert, F. Safdarian, T.J. Overbye, D.J. Morrow, “Case Study on Design Considerations for Wide-Area Transmission Grid Operation Visual Storytelling,” in the IEEE Kansas Power and Energy Conference (KPEC), Manhattan, KS, April 2022. View

A team at Texas A&M has updated the Polish system case2746wop to include approximate geographic locations for the 400kV and 220kV substations and dynamic models for the generators as described in

[14] J. Snodgrass, S. Kunkolienkar, U. Habiba, Y. Liu, M. Stevens, F. Safdarian, T. Overbye, R. Korab, “Case Study of Enhancing the MATPOWER Polish Electric Grid,” IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference, College Station, TX, February 2022.

You can download the latest updates to the Polish case2746wop dataset from the Texas A&M team here.

This dataset includes a 150 bus synthetic electric test case, corresponding to the Austin-Travis County T&D system, along with the associated 47-node synthetic natural gas test case with 23 loads and 46 pipelines. This system is designed to aid with developing and validating analysis techniques for combined electric-gas systems.

You can download the latest electric-gas datasets from the Texas A&M team here.

You can download the latest PERFORM datasets from the Texas A&M team here.

You can download this combined T&D Synthetic Dataset here.

5/31/2018 | 70,000 Bus Synthetic Grid on Footprint of the Eastern United States
This ACTIVSg70k test case is a 70,000-bus case built on the footprint of the eastern United States. This case includes 52 areas and nine nominal voltage levels. It bears no relation to the actual grid in this location, except that generation and load profiles are similar, based on public data. This synthetic system was developed with support from the US ARPA-E Grid Data program. You can download the power flow case here. More details are available here.

3/25/2018 | Two New Publications on Synthetic Electric Grid Modeling
[9] A. B. Birchfield, T. Xu, and T. J. Overbye, “Power flow convergence and reactive power planning in the creation of large synthetic grids,” in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 2018.
[10] T. Xu, A. B. Birchfield and T. J. Overbye, “Modeling, Tuning and Validating System Dynamics in Synthetic Electric Grids,” in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 2018.
To encourage and support innovation, synthetic electric grids are fictional, designed systems that mimic the complexity of actual electric grids but contain no confidential information. In order to scale these systems to ten thousand buses or more, robust reactive power planning is needed, accounting for power flow convergence issues. [9] addresses reactive power planning and power flow convergence in the context of large synthetic power grids. Additional complexities can be added into synthetic models to widen their applications. Thus, [10] aims to extend synthetic network base cases for transient stability studies. An automated algorithm is proposed to assign appropriate models and parameters to each synthetic generator. A two-stage model tuning procedure is also proposed to improve synthetic dynamic models and several transient stability metrics are developed to validate the created dynamic cases. A complete list of publications is available here.

2/14/2018 | 25,000-bus Synthetic Grid on the Footprint of the Northeastern United States

This ACTIVSg25k test case is built on the footprint of the northeastern United States, and it includes sixteen areas and nine nominal voltage levels. It bears no relation to the actual grid in this location, except that generation and load profiles are similar, based on public data. The case includes power flow data as well as parameters for transient stability and geomagnetic disturbance studies. This synthetic system was developed with support from the US ARPA-E Grid Data program. You can download the power flow case used to generate this movie including transient stability data here. More details are available here.