Real-time (RT) simulation is a highly reliable simulation method that is mostly based on electromagnetic transient simulation of complex systems comprising many domains. It is increasingly used in power and energy systems for both academic research and industrial applications. Due to the evolution of the computing power of RT simulators in recent years, new classes of applications and expanded fields of practice could now be addressed with RT simulation. This increase in computation power implies that models can be built more accurately and the whole simulation system gets closer to reality. This Task Force paper summarizes various applications of digital RT simulation technologies in the design, analysis, and testing of power and energy systems. INDEX TERMS Applications, design, distribution networks, electric power circuits, hardware-in-theloop (HIL), modeling, rapid prototyping (RP), real-time (RT) simulation, testing, transmission networks. I. INTRODUCTION D IGITAL real-time (RT) simulators exploit advanced digital hardware and parallel computing methods to solve differential equations characterizing the system

Abstract-This paper describes the authors' experience in the assessment of laboratory activities based on an open source software package for power system analysis, namely, Power System Analysis Toolbox (PSAT). PSAT is currently used in several universities for both undergraduate and graduate courses. PSAT has also its own Web forum, which provides support to students and researchers all around the world, thus resulting in an almost unique example of "virtual laboratory" over the Internet. This paper attempts to answer through a variety of real-life examples the following open questions: What are the practical and pedagogical advantages of using an open source software with respect to proprietary software for power system analysis? What happens if a power system virtual laboratory is freely available on the Web? What is the difference between a class-based and a Web-based virtual laboratory?Index Terms-GNU Octave, Internet, Matlab, power system analysis, stability, time domain simulations, virtual laboratories.

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The application of advanced signal processing techniques to power system measurement data for the estimation of dynamic properties has been a research subject for over two decades. Several techniques have been applied to transient (or ringdown) data, ambient data, and to probing data. Some of these methodologies have been included in off-line analysis software, and are now being incorporated into software tools used in control rooms for monitoring the near real-time behavior of power system dynamics. In this paper we illustrate the practical application of some ambient analysis methods for electromechanical mode estimation in different power systems. We apply these techniques to phasor measurement unit (PMU) data from stored archives of several hours originating from the US Eastern Interconnection, the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, the Nordic Power System, and time-synchronized Frequency Disturbance Recorder (FDR) data from Nigeria. It is shown that available signal processing tools are readily applicable for analysis of different power systems, regardless of their specific dynamic characteristics. The discussions and results in this paper are of value to power system operators and planners as they provide information of the applicability of these techniques via readily available signal processing tools, and in addition, it is shown how to critically analyze the results obtained with these methods.Index Terms Power system oscillations, power system identification, power system parameter estimation, power system monitoring, application of signal processing techniques, synchronized phasor measurements, power system measurements, small-signal stability.

Abstract-This paper develops a measurement-based method for estimating a two-machine reduced model to represent the interarea dynamics of a radial, multimachine power system. The method uses synchronized bus voltage phasor measurements at two buses and the line current on the power transfer path. The innovation is the application of the interarea oscillation components in the voltage variables resulting from disturbances for extrapolating system impedances and inertias beyond the measured buses. Expressions for the amplitudes of the bus voltage and bus frequency oscillations as functions of the location on the transmission path are derived from a small-signal perturbation approach. The reduced model provides approximate response to disturbances on the transfer path and offers an alternative to model reduction techniques based on detailed system models and data.Index Terms-inertia extrapolation, interarea oscillations, phasor measurement, power system model reduction, power transfer interface, reactance extrapolation.