Economic Analysis

pandapower

Economic Analysis totals CAPEX from element costs, power losses from a load flow, and optionally energy losses over a lifetime using load and generation profiles.

When to use

• Project CAPEX from lines, transformers, and other equipment
• Where the losses are (lines, transformers, impedances, DC lines)
• Energy-loss cost over a lifetime when you supply an energy price

How to run

1. Fill the Economic tab on the elements you want in the CAPEX total.
2. Click Simulate → Economic Analysis.
3. Optionally enable energy-loss profiles and a lifetime / energy price.
4. Run and compare CAPEX, power losses, and energy-loss cost.

How it is calculated

The economic analysis performs the following steps:

1. CAPEX: Sums costs from the Economic tab of each element (lines, transformers, etc.). For lines: cost × length_km × parallel. For transformers: cost × parallel.
2. Power Losses: Runs one AC load flow and extracts active power losses (pl_mw) from lines, transformers, three-winding transformers, impedance branches, DC lines / DC lines mapped through pandapower.
3. Energy Losses (optional): When profiles are enabled, Electrisim builds hourly scaling traces for loads and generators, evaluates losses on a compact grid of operating points with repeated runpp, then interpolates losses for each hour (SciPy RegularGridInterpolator when both load and generation vary). This estimates the sum of hourly loss energy, Σ P_loss(t)Δt, with Δt = 1 h.
4. Period vs lifetime MWh: The simulation-period integral is exposed as total_energy_losses_period_mwh. Multiplying by Lifetime (years) yields total_energy_losses_mwh, representing cumulative losses across the project horizon.
5. Energy Loss Cost: When an energy price is supplied, cost equals total_energy_losses_mwh (lifetime MWh) × price.

Formulas: Power Losses and Electrical Energy Losses

Power losses are computed by pandapower from the load flow results. The following formulas apply per element type:

Power Loss (P_loss) per Element

AC Line, Impedance, DC Line (line_dc):

P_loss = P_from + P_to

where P_from is active power flow into the element at the "from" bus, and P_to is active power flow into the element at the "to" bus (power flow convention: one direction is positive, the other negative, so the sum equals the power dissipated).

Transformer (2-winding and 3-winding):

P_loss = P_hv + P_lv

where P_hv is active power at the high-voltage side and P_lv at the low-voltage side. Equivalent to P_from + P_to in terms of power balance.

HV DC Link (dcline):

P_loss = P_from + P_to

with P_to = −P_from × (1 − loss_percent/100) − loss_mw. The loss is thus P_from × (loss_percent/100) + loss_mw.

Physical interpretation: For resistive elements (lines, impedance), P_loss ≈ I²R, where I is the current and R the resistance. For transformers, losses include copper (I²R) and iron (no-load) losses.

Total Power Losses

P_total,loss (MW) = Σ P_loss over all lines, transformers, impedance elements, and DC lines

Electrical Energy Losses

Hourly losses are reconstructed via interpolation from strategically sampled AC load flows (see workflow above—not full pandapower run_timeseries). Energy over the simulated horizon:

E_period (MWh) = Σ_t=1..N P_loss(t) × Δt

Lifetime cumulative energy:

E_lifetime (MWh) = E_period × lifetime_years

The JSON field total_energy_losses_period_mwh stores E_period; total_energy_losses_mwh stores E_lifetime.

Energy Loss Cost

Cost = E_lifetime (MWh) × energy_price_per_MWh

Economic analysis request payload

The frontend merges diagram cells with an object typ: "EconomicAnalysisPandaPower Parameters". Important keys mirrored by Flask (app.py):

• frequency, currency, algorithm, calculate_voltage_angles, init
• use_generation_profile — UI sets this true whenever profile widgets are shown.
• time_steps, lifetime_years, load_profile, generation_profile, energy_price_per_mwh, energy_price_currency, calculation_mode

Economic analysis JSON outputs

• total_capex, capex_breakdown: Aggregated CAPEX and per-element contribution pulled from diagram economics fields.
• total_power_losses_mw, power_losses_breakdown: Sum of pl_mw after the baseline load flow.
• total_energy_losses_period_mwh: Integrated losses over time_steps hours (Δt = 1 h).
• total_energy_losses_mwh: Lifetime cumulative (= period × lifetime_years).
• energy_loss_cost: Lifetime MWh × price when provided.
• load_profile_values, generation_profile_values: Hourly scaling vectors stored for auditing/charts.

Input Parameters

Results

• Total CAPEX: Sum of all element costs in the selected currency
• CAPEX Breakdown: Table of element type, name, and cost per element
• Total Power Losses (MW): Sum of active power losses from load flow
• Power Losses Breakdown: Table of element type, name, and power loss (MW) per element
• Total Energy Losses (period): total_energy_losses_period_mwh — integrated MWh over the simulated hour window.
• Total Energy Losses (lifetime): total_energy_losses_mwh — equals period energy × lifetime years.
• Energy Loss Cost: Lifetime MWh × energy price when specified.
• Profiles used: Load and generation profile names and hour count used for the calculation

Note: Set cost per unit in the Economic tab of each element dialog (lines, transformers, etc.) before running Economic Analysis. Element names in the breakdown match the names shown in the CAPEX and Power Losses tables.