OpenDSS: Where it came from and where it is going (Slides)

The OpenDSS program was created in 1997 when the Distribution Planning problem became more complicated due largely to the introduction of distributed generation into the distribution system. Through the 1990?s it became apparent that engineers were going to have to include more than the radial MV feeders to get the right answer. The sub-transmission (HV) system was added, requiring a meshed system solver ? so we adapted methods from a harmonics solver capable of modeling very detailed multiphase power systems. Then we learned that the answer was still not right: the load and generation had to move to account for the coincidence between them. Static power flows gave way to 8760-hour simulations. EPRI made the program open source in 2008 to make its features available to many more researchers and to train the next generation of distribution engineers. In the last 15 years, there have been over 160,000 downloads worldwide. There are no doubt thousands of BS, MS, and Ph.D. students whose projects have been made possible by OpenDSS. Many features have been added including built-in parallel processing and other support for modern computing architectures. Moving forward, there will be more emphasis on such things as dynamics for microgrid simulations, modern DER and grid conditioning devices, advanced protection/coordination capabilities and better means of accommodating user customization. A tighter connection to the popular Python language and more cross-platform implementations are quite likely.