Learn
Generation plant design, explained
Understand demand, size generation and storage, compare cost, and check the network that delivers the power. One concept per page, in plain English, with a diagram you can change.
You do not need Phasor to learn here, but each page shows you where the concept appears in the software.
Guided paths
01
Design a generation plant
From the demand curve to solar, storage, dispatch and lifetime cost.
20 lessons · in working order02
Deliver power to customers
Connect a plant to its customers and check voltage, loading and protection.
11 lessons · in working orderThe concept library
59 concepts in the library
Generation plant design
- Power and energySeparate the peak in kW from the energy in kWh.
- Load profiles and diversityBuild a demand curve from when customers use power.
- Solar resource and weatherRead irradiance, weather years and the time basis of a resource profile.
- Solar PV outputSee how sunlight, temperature and the inverter set delivered power.
- Battery power and energyA battery needs both enough discharge power and enough stored energy.
- Hybrid plant energy balanceFollow solar, storage and backup as they serve a day of demand.
- Diesel dispatch strategiesCompare load following and cycle charging on the same demand.
- Plant cost and LCOEConnect capital, operating cost and delivered energy over the project life.
Compare plant designs
- Site evidence and demandSeparate mapped buildings from surveyed customers and measured demand.
- Reliability and unserved energyMeasure how much demand goes unmet, and for how long.
- Plant sizing and Pareto frontsFilter feasible candidates before comparing cost and reliability.
- Renewable fraction and curtailmentFind why extra solar can create surplus instead of more useful supply.
- Sensitivity and weather riskTest a changed assumption and compare a set of resource cases.
- Tariffs, cash flow and financeConnect sales and collection to cash flow; distinguish tariff from LCOE.
Plant and network
- Plant sizing and network checksEnergy adequacy and acceptable voltage are separate design checks.
- Distribution network designFollow power from the source through feeders and service drops.
- Conductor size and network costCompare voltage drop and cost while holding the route fixed.
- Grid import, export and backupSee how connection limits and outages change energy exchange.
- Design versions and assumptionsKeep every result tied to the inputs and assumptions that produced it.
- Plant design worked exampleCompare a reproducible teaching day, then explain the next engineering checks.
Fundamentals
- PhasorsOne arrow that describes a full sine wave.
- Three-phase systemsWhy the grid uses three waves, 120 degrees apart.
- Wye & delta connectionsSame parts, same supply — three times the power in delta.
- Active & reactive powerP does the work. Q holds the voltage. S is the total.
- ImpedanceResistance, reactance, and how a network pushes back.
- The per-unit systemOne scale for every voltage level in the network.
- Voltage dropWhy the voltage falls along a feeder, and what controls it.
- Thévenin & grid strengthAny network, seen from one bus: a source and an impedance.
Power flow
- Power flow basicsWhat the study answers, what it needs, and what it returns.
- Power through a lineTwo voltages and an impedance set P, Q and direction.
- Bus typesSlack, PV and PQ: what is fixed, and what the solver finds.
- Nodal analysis & the Y-busThe whole network as one matrix, built branch by branch.
- Newton–RaphsonHow the solver finds the answer: guess, measure, correct.
- Load modelsConstant power, current or impedance — and why the choice matters.
- Voltage bandsThe rule that decides what counts as a violation.
- Voltage & reactive-power controlThe four levers that hold a bus voltage — and their limits.
Faults & protection
- Short circuit basicsWhat happens in a fault, and what sets the current.
- Fault typesThree-phase, line-to-line, and faults to earth.
- Symmetrical componentsHow one unbalanced problem becomes three balanced ones.
- Sequence networksThree simple circuits, wired differently for each fault.
- Transformer vector groupsDyn11 decoded: windings, neutrals, and the 30° clock.
- Fault current valuesI″k, ip, Ib and Ik — four numbers with four jobs.
- X/R ratio & peak currentWhy the first peak is the biggest, and what κ means.
- Earthing arrangementsThe neutral connection that sets the earth-fault current.
- TCC curves & gradingTime–current curves, and devices that wait their turn.
- Earth-fault loop impedanceThe LV check that proves a fault trips the breaker.
- Protection zonesEvery meter protected twice: primary first, backup in reserve.
- Directional overcurrentWhen amps alone cannot tell which side the fault is on.
- CT saturationWhen the current transformer can no longer copy the fault.
Power quality
- Unbalance & neutral currentUnequal phase loads, and where the difference flows.
- HarmonicsDistorted waves are sums of clean ones.
- Triplen harmonics in the neutralWhy third harmonics stack in the neutral instead of canceling.
- Harmonic aggregationHarmonic sources add as phasors, not as amps.
- ResonanceWhen a capacitor bank and the network make an amplifier.
- Passive harmonic filtersA tuned trap for one harmonic — and the new peak it creates.
- THDOne number for how distorted a wave is.
- Motor starting & voltage sagSix times the current, and the whole bus feels it.