A generic modeling and development approach for WECC composite load model

Abstract The composite load model (CLM) proposed by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) is gaining increasing traction in industry, particularly in North America. At the same time, it has been recognized that further improvements in structure, initialization and aggregation methods are needed to enhance model accuracy and flexibility. However, the lack of a generic modeling and open-source implementation of the WECC CLM has become a roadblock for many researchers for further improvement. To bridge this gap, this paper presents a generic CLM modeling approach and the first open reference implementation of the WECC CLM. Individual load components and the CLM are first developed and tested in MATLAB, then translated to the high-performance computing (HPC) based, parallel simulation framework – GridPACK™. The main contributions of the paper include: (1) presenting important yet undocumented details of modeling and initializing the CLM, particularly for a parallel simulation framework like GridPACK™; (2) implementation details of the load components such as the single-phase air conditioner motor; (3) an improved initialization method; (4) implementing the CLM in a modular and extensible manner. The implementation has been tested at both the component and system levels, and benchmarked against commercial simulation programs with satisfactory accuracy.