GE Multi-Area Reliability Simulation (MARS)

The GE Multi-Area Reliability Simulation (GE MARS) engine enables electric utility planners to quickly and accurately assess the ability of a power system, comprised of a number of interconnected areas, to adequately satisfy customer load requirements. Based on a full sequential Monte Carlo simulation, GE MARS performs a chronological hourly simulation of the system, comparing the hourly load demand in each area to the total available generation in the area, which has been adjusted to account for planned maintenance and randomly occurring forced outages. Areas with excess capacity will provide emergency assistance to deficient areas, subject to transfer limits between the areas.

  • Superior probabilistic algorithm. GE MARS uses Markov Chain Monte Carlo as opposed to recursive convolution to simulate complex operating conditions.
  • Model emergency operating procedures and their effect on generation capacity adequacy
  • Industry-accepted best practices for modeling renewable generation. GE MARS supports unlimited years of renewable generation data while preserving correlation to load.
  • Brand new energy storage modeling methods.
  • Calculation results go beyond LOLE and LOEE. GE MARS' transparent output shows why these results are what they are.
  • Pre-made databases are available for use.

  • Probabilistic assessments of generation capacity adequacy, such as NERC PROB-A
  • Accurately assess the impact of variable renewable generation, additional transmission lines, and energy storage on capacity adequacy
  • Perform calculations such as equivalent load carrying capacity

Large production simulations can take a significant amount of time to process on standard desktop hardware. To address this issue, GE MARS can be run on HPC resources. Rather than running through the entire study on one machine, we automatically split the study up into blocks and send each block to a separate machine/node. This allows the work to be done in parallel, greatly reducing the amount of time required for a single study. Once processed, the data is then merged, allowing the user to view the results of the study as if it had been executed on a single machine.

GE MARS comes with a new User Interface (UI) and Application Programming Interface (API) that greatly improve the user experience. The UI provides several features including:

  • Easy-to-use, structured file handling for all your cases
  • Special-designed text editor with documentation to make input table handling easier
  • Create and save input and output tables using csv and xlsx formats
  • Intuitive calculation management
  • Professional-quality report creation

The API allows Python users even more power, including:

  • Automated postprocessing calculations and report generation
  • Prepare and run calculations on a local or remote computer
  • Create inputs from any data source that can be handled in Python
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For more information on GE MARS, contact us today.

 

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GE MARS Brochure