ETAP 6 Power Station (ETAP 6.0.0, Full Modules
Serge Moquin
They software is only forward compactible. Exchange of models between clients and designers wont be easy if we are using different versions.
I would to see the features such as lightning protection modelling using rolling sphere, EGM and shield angels. The software can only perform grid design for substation earthing only
Hello Percy, thank you for your positive feedback. We always add new and innovative features to our annual releases and take suggestions from our customers into consideration for future releases.
In regards to your question about lightning protection, you can utilize the ETAP emtCoSim module; and your feature request for "infinite busbar" you can utilize the bus editor and select "swing" to model an infinite bus.
1. The very attractive thing about ETAP is its user-friendly graphical interface which is very attractive with state of the art graphical symbols having both IEC and ANSI options selectable on simple clicks along with color coding according to voltage levels. This helps visually a lot in classifying one's systems based on voltage levels.
2. Help Desk support is an excellent feature with FTP support area for large file handling.
3. One click report generation with study/scenario wizards saves a lot of time for complex projects.
1. First is the dumpster. Once you delete an element, you can't simply undo to restore it from dumpster. You need to be super smart to get it back. The undo / redo should be smartly management as in many other software. It will save a lot of hassle and time.
2. Backward compatibility is also a major concern. Projects created in newer versions can't be opened in older versions at all which is required sometimes to review the work of contractors. It should have some backward compatibility, say, to 4 previous releases.
3. Static studies such as load flow, short circuit etc do not consider turbine rating to generate alerts as the same is needed in some plants where turbines are under-rated than associated generators. No documentation is also available in this regard.
4. Library updates are also not available until next version is released. Limited models are available for ASD/VFD drives for harmonic studies even for very common drives. One has to create every common model manually which takes a lot of time.
Thank you for your feedback. As you know, as a seasoned user, ETAP is thriving to deliver the best product on the market. As a user with a valid maintenance contract you may contact our 24/7 online HelpDesk or call ETAP support to assist you with these issues. In regards to backwards compatibility please contact one of our local ETAP offices or representatives for support with older releases.
Thank you for your recent review. ETAP is a very comprehensive software suite with hundreds of modules to choose from. We encourage all of our users to enroll in one of our many workshops around the world, with many available online now:
Grounding system study is inferior than other competitor such as XGSLab, CDEGS. Main Ground Grid analysis of ETAP is suitable only for a simple soil condition. I experienced very difficult soil condition with resistivity in the range of 800-1500 Ohm-m which ETAP cannot help and Electricity Authority disapproved analysis using ETAP. Thus we have to seek for other software to solve the problem by modeling a customized grid conductor such as using clay covering bare copper conductor and analyze touch and step voltage.
Cables sizing calculation still has no capability to calculate according to IEC60287 standard which calculate from heat transfer theory. I have to purchase other software, CYMCAP, to calculate correctly. So ETAP is used for power system analysis only except cables sizing calculation and grounding system study.
Another cons is ETAP support. I experienced that sometime I found problem using ETAP in analyzing GCB, I asked ETAP for technical help but unfortunately EATP ignored my request and after several follow up I got a very simple words which is not any useful. I felt very bad with ETAP support team. I hope that ETAP support would be improved.
Thank you for your feedback. We take our customer feedback very serious and will work on making improvements wherever we can. Please look for our next release which will have considerable enhancements for cables, including IEC 60287, ground grid analysis, and many more.
1) Harmonic Analysis - Result Difficult to Compare IEEE 519
2) Relay Coordination - Taking More Time to Prepare TCC
3) Not Having Feature to Change the TAG Nos. At A Time All Together (Like in Word Find/Replace)
4) Not Having Feature to Prepare Any Component Library User Friendly.
5) Not Having Feature to Change Model Component Symbols from IEC to ANSI or reverse all together at a time.
2) Taking More Time to Prepare TCC
I would like to recommend trying our zones of protection viewer which sets the zones of protection and allows you to plot all the TCCs in one shot. The feature comes with protection device coordination.