Website

Github

Mailing List

Meeting Calendar

LFX Security

Wiki

Roadmap

PowSyBl (Power System Blocks) is an open source library dedicated to electrical grid modeling, simulation and visualization.

PowSyBl may be scripted for a quick solution, but it can also be used as a library to write complex software for power system simulation and analysis. Using PowSyBl, developers can create applications able to perform dynamic power flow simulations and security analyses on the network, handle a variety of formats including CGMES for European data exchanges, and many other tasks.

PowSyBl has a completely modular design, enabling developers to extend or customize its features by providing their own plugins. Modularity is a key value of PowSyBl’s open source design.

The image below shows the PowSyBl network map service, showing the electrical grid as a network over a map of Paris:

PowSyBl provides a complete internal model of the electrical grid, complete with substations, voltage levels, AC and DC lines, two- and three- winding transformers, batteries, generators, loads, shunt and static VAR compensators, and other related equipment.

For security analyses, PowSyBl enables users to define contingencies on the network. The grid model can also be enhanced with extensions that provide complete equipment modeling, including dynamic profile, short-circuit profile, and monitoring.

PowSyBl also provides importers and exporters for several common pan-European exchange formats – ENTSO-E CIM/CGMES, UCTE-DEF, and more.

PowSyBl as a library provides several APIs for power system simulation and analysis, including power flow computation, security analysis, remedial action simulation, sensitivity analysis, time domain simulation, and other simulations. These simulations can run either on a personal computer or on a server. The separation of the simulation API from the implementations allows developers to provide their own implementations if necessary, making the framework very flexible.

PowSyBl is also available as a command line tool for quick-shot modelling and simulation. PowSyBl scripts may be written and executed thanks to the dedicated Domain Specific Language (DSL) code included in the project.

All features of PowSyBl are exposed as web services to make it easy to build web-based applications on top of the framework.

Project Features

PowSyBl includes many features:

  • Grid data model, described with Java classes
  • Extension capability and modular architecture with plugins
  • Data management system
  • Importers and exporters for several formats (CIM-CGMES, UCTE, and others)
  • APIs to various computation modules (load-flow, security analysis, short-circuit computation, sensitivity computation, optimizers, AMPL)
  • Visualization features: single-line diagrams, network-area diagrams, map-viewer, Jupyter widgets
  • Distribution framework for HPC (tested on a 10,000-core platform)
  • Scripting

PowSyBl as a library provides several APIs for power system simulations and analyses, including:

  • Power flow computations
  • Security analyses
  • Remedial action simulations
  • Short circuits computations
  • Sensitivity computations
  • Time domain simulations

These simulations can run on a supercomputer – this has been tested using the CORDIS iTesla project with the Curie supercomputer.

PowSyBl is written in Java but is also available to Python users through Pypowsybl, the Python binding and to Julia users through powsybl.jl.

PowSyBl is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. PowSyBl was initiated by RTE and contributed to LF Energy in 2019.

PowSyBl Case Studies

PowSyBl Videos

Workshop Preview: Using PyPowSyBl to Assess Transfer Capacitiy of New Electricity Int... Fabrice GUY

September 22, 2024 10:00 pm

This LF Energy Project Webinar took place 3 June 2024.

Abstract:
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?

Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!

During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.

PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;

The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.

What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.

Speakers:
Sophie Frasnedo, Software Engineer, RTE
Coline Piloquet, Software Engineer, RTE

To learn more about the LF Energy PowSyBl project, visit https://lfenergy.org/projects/powsybl/. 1:1:52

This LF Energy Project Webinar took place 3 June 2024.

Abstract:
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?

Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!

During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.

PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;

The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.

What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.

Speakers:
Sophie Frasnedo, Software Engineer, RTE
Coline Piloquet, Software Engineer, RTE

To learn more about the LF Energy PowSyBl project, visit https://lfenergy.org/projects/powsybl/.

YouTube Video UExLeUZmMUo5WGtwdEx2RHpiaU04SWt6VkVPVWl6WjZpRi4yODlGNEE0NkRGMEEzMEQy

Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl - A Hands-On Approach

June 3, 2024 5:01 pm

This video was originally posted to https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-1918-gridsuite-and-powsybl-an-open-source-approach-to-develop-advanced-tools-for-grid-analysis-and-simulation-of-power-systems-/. Thank you to FOSDEM for sharing under CC-BY-2.0-BE-DEED (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/be/deed.en).

"GridSuite and PowSyBl: an Open Source approach to develop advanced tools for grid analysis and simulation of power systems" was presented in the FOSDEM 2024 Energy Devroom by Jean-Baptiste Heyberger of RTE.

During these last two decades, transmission system operators (TSOs) have been facing profound changes such as penetration of renewables, DC networks, redefinition of European market mechanisms leading to major evolutions in the way to operate the electrical transmission grids. The goal of carbon neutrality implies that most of the challenges for TSOs are still to come. All those changes imply drastic changes in the way to perform grid analysis and have appropriate computation modules to perform efficient security assessment. Legacy tools are evolving slowly with low information about used approximations. RTE, the French TSO, believes that Open Source is the perfect answer to build power system tools in an efficient, flexible, transparent, and collaborative way. RTE has significantly invested in these Open Source tools and would like to share his experience with demo of tools currently in operation based on PowSyBl framework.

Learn more about PowSyBl at https://lfenergy.org/projects/powsybl/. 15:22

This video was originally posted to https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-1918-gridsuite-and-powsybl-an-open-source-approach-to-develop-advanced-tools-for-grid-analysis-and-simulation-of-power-systems-/. Thank you to FOSDEM for sharing under CC-BY-2.0-BE-DEED (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/be/deed.en).

"GridSuite and PowSyBl: an Open Source approach to develop advanced tools for grid analysis and simulation of power systems" was presented in the FOSDEM 2024 Energy Devroom by Jean-Baptiste Heyberger of RTE.

During these last two decades, transmission system operators (TSOs) have been facing profound changes such as penetration of renewables, DC networks, redefinition of European market mechanisms leading to major evolutions in the way to operate the electrical transmission grids. The goal of carbon neutrality implies that most of the challenges for TSOs are still to come. All those changes imply drastic changes in the way to perform grid analysis and have appropriate computation modules to perform efficient security assessment. Legacy tools are evolving slowly with low information about used approximations. RTE, the French TSO, believes that Open Source is the perfect answer to build power system tools in an efficient, flexible, transparent, and collaborative way. RTE has significantly invested in these Open Source tools and would like to share his experience with demo of tools currently in operation based on PowSyBl framework.

Learn more about PowSyBl at https://lfenergy.org/projects/powsybl/.

YouTube Video UExLeUZmMUo5WGtwdEx2RHpiaU04SWt6VkVPVWl6WjZpRi41NkI0NEY2RDEwNTU3Q0M2

FOSDEM 2024 Energy Devroom - GridSuite and PowSyBl

February 26, 2024 5:49 pm

Continental-Wide Coordination of the Power Grid Powered by PowSyBl

July 3, 2023 4:00 am

Model Your Power Grid with PowSyBl - Anne Tilloy & Jon Harper

December 3, 2020 10:35 pm

Recent PowSyBl News

Upcoming Meetings

View the meeting calendar

View the calendar of all LF Energy events

Project Special Interest Group: Grid Simulation and Modeling

Project Lifecycle Stage: Early Adoption