Learn how EEEngineering uses ETAP to transform power studies into engaging, interactive presentations

Challenges

• Traditional study reports require excessive time to review
• Without customizable and understandable visualization tools, engineering consultants must exert significant effort to communicate study results to their clients
• Facility owners and their staff are under great pressure to make decisions efficiently, as they often are in high demand working on multiple projects

Because traditional reports can be quite lengthy (up to 5,000 pages), facility personnel traditionally have to undertake excessive and time-consuming research to deduce the insights and details from these reports. This case study evaluated the use of ETAP to provide insightful power study visualizations and analysis results in order to enable facility engineers and equipment owners to more quickly pinpoint areas for improvement with a greater degree of confidence.

Within the project, different study modes were prepared and presented to help with visualization, corresponding to Short Circuit, Arc Flash, Coordination and Protection, as well as the base one-line diagram with no studies applied. Starting by examining power source and their loads, ETAP was used to run the load flow to reveal the kilowatt flow for this project from the utility and wind turbine all the way down to the loads and other substations. Toggling the view revealed the EMS, which in this project was 42 EMS from utility and 1338 EMS from the wind turbine.

A short circuit analysis of 3-phase device duty was then presented within the ETAP single-line diagram, as an alternative to the traditional method of reading the long report. The short circuit view in ETAP showed several results, and the ETAP Datablocks feature helped to visualize them to determine if the facility’s rating was adequate, by showing all the major components, bus breaker, transformer and so on.

After this, ETAP’s ability to present different levels of information was highlighted as part of protection and coordination studies, where breaker devices were included and easily identified in the single-line diagram, instead of searching through the study report. ETAP’s unique and highly useful coordination study feature, called Sequence-of-Operation, helped to spot whether the protected devices are coordinated or whether there were some paths and breakers with faulted currents. The final study was arc flash using the IEEE 1584 standard. By using Datablocks and customized labels, the analysis was far easier to understand by attendees of the presentation, and it was also very easy to spot any issues that needed to be addressed. 

• ETAP Power Simulator to create and customize a single-line diagram representing the electrical digital twin of the power system and perform Power Load Flow Studies, Short Circuit Coordination, and Automated Protection & Coordination
• ETAP Arc Flash Analysis to identify and assess high risk arc flash areas in the electrical system
• STAR – Protective Device Sequence of Operation to evaluate, verify and confirm the operation and selectivity of protective devices for various fault types at any location on one-line diagram, via normalized Time Current Characteristic Curve (TCC) views

• Produce compelling and engaging visual presentations of study results to assist engineers in analysis.
• Examine various studies side-by-side within one project, along with the network load flow visualization, for better efficiency.
• Apply customization to the single-line diagram using datablocks and labels to improve the client’s understanding.
• Pinpoint errors easily using innovative solutions like Sequence of Operation and the ETAP Electrical Digital Twin.
• Visual reporting that quickly and confidently helps clients reach the decision stage.

Meaningful power analysis insights in minutes instead of hours

• Electrical Power Engineers can vastly reduce the time spent on power system study research and gain confidence in their assessment by evaluating the electrical network within ETAP using single-line views and power system studies side-by-side.
• Owner’s reach the decision stage sooner due to the clarity of power system studies presented using ETAP.
• ETAP provides a platform of trust between all stakeholders to visually understand the issues and factors that need to be addressed in their facility.

In just a 30-minute interactive meeting, the powerful graphical interface and presentation tools, including Data Blocks, Multiple Presentation layers, Sequence of Operations, and Arc Flash calculator quickly informed the client.

When facility owners understand what we do in SCCAF, they are willing to do what it takes to solve potential problems by using ETAP software.

Thierry Epassa, Director of Electrical Engineering at EEEngineering LLC