Asynchronous approach to simulations in smart grid

Abstract

The approach used to analyze power grids is not suitable when demand side management is introduced. This is due to the fact that, from now on, the demand on power grids requires to be analyzed in a disaggregated manner. When the demand is represented using a bottom-up approach where every individual device is represented, a complex system approach for the simulation must be considered. This approach is usually performed under a synchronous timing which involves a unique clock for every entity. However, this paradigm does not consider the nature of the entity and, therefore, adjusts the simulation time development to the entity that requires a higher pace. This means that many calculations are performed even though they do not output a different result. The proposal of this paper considers this regard and allows each entity to develop their time according to their pace. The case study shows that this approach achieves a significant gain in terms of execution time whilst there is a small loss in the memory usage.