Questions about running contingency analysis for a large-scale network?

Hi, I will try to answer your questions as I have written python script for my needs for ACCC calculations.

-Is there a way to automatically generate .sub, .mon and.con files？ In general if you want to generate those files from python, you should prepare functions that can do that, but I think you don't need to do that automatically as usually you know before calculations what you want to analyse - area numbers and voltage levels. In .sub file you can create as many different subsystems as you want, give them different names, and later in python just manipulate in changing subsystem name rather than trying to generate new .sub file. The same advice for .mon file - put everything you want to monitor there, later on anyway you will need to program your specific python function for digging into ACCC results file and filtering what you need. For .con - I advice you to prepare different .con files for different levels of analyses - one for e.g. 400 kV level, another for just generators and so on - each for different purposes as some contingencys will run very long, e.g. n-2 for branches for voltage levels less than 400 kV.

-I wonder if I can save the the violated contingencies (only the contingency names/indices should be sufficient) to a list. Of course you can, so why we are using python instead of psse GUI - in python you can do everything :) Following python code will give you contingency list (excerptions from my code, sorry if something will not work):

#method 1: contingency list with short descriptions

sumry = pssarrays.accc_summary(accfile=acc)
print 'Contingency list:'
k = 0
for n in sumry.colabel:
  k += 1
  print k, n

#method 2: contingency list with full descriptions

for i in range(len(sumry.colabel)):
  ContLabel = sumry.colabel[i]
  try:
    rlst = pssarrays.accc_solution(accfile=acc, colabel=ContLabel, stype='contingency',
                                   busmsm=busmsm, sysmsm=sysmsm)
  finally:
    pass

  if rlst is not None:  # contingency solution found, proceed
    msm = rlst.mvatotal #if need to check mismatch
    msm2=rlst.mvaworst #also mismatch (msm2<msm  - I dont know why)

    if (only_bad_mismatch and msm2>maxMismatch) or (only_bad_mismatch==0): #if need to filter cases with high mismnatches - e.g. where no solution found
      contdescr = rlst.codesc
      s=contdescr[0]
      for z in range(1,len(contdescr)):
        s += ' & ' + contdescr[z]
      print s #printing contingency full description

-Does any one know the Python module that can be used to create a specific contingency for either generator or branch?

No specific module I think, but you can write easily function that will generate .con file (which is in text format of course) where you can put all contingencys you want as e.g. one bus contingency description in .con file looks simple:

CONTINGENCY 'Line 111-222-1' 
DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 111 TO BUS 222 CIRCUIT '1'
END

Just iterate over all branches changing bus numbers and putting those three lines into .con. Later on just re-run ACCC with newly created .con.

In my program I organized ... (more)