Dynamic coloring provides a visual overview of the current status of the network, making it easy to identify areas that are energized, multi-fed, or de-energized directly in the map or schematic. In the event of a fault or outage in the network, dynamic coloring can be used to quickly identify which parts of the network have lost power (displayed in gray) and which parts remain energized.

The coloring is controlled by the topology analyzer, which determines which objects are fed and whether they are multi-fed.

The dynamic coloring is activated via Operator > Operator preferences > My preferences > Dynamic coloring. The function can also be started from the toolbar with the button . The dynamic coloring works even without Operator being active. If the function is turned on, the de-energized network is displayed in grey. If dynamic coloring is not updated correctly after restarting the topology analyzer or after stopping and starting Operator, the coloring may need to be reset manually. This is done by turning the function off and on again.

 

The default behavior is as follows:

•Basic coloring - Objects are color-coded based on voltage levels. The standard configuration uses voltage levels of 6 kV, 10 kV and 20 kV.

•Multi-feed objects - If an object can be traced to more than one active feeding bay, it will be marked as multi-fed and displayed in bold yellow color in the default configuration.

 

The topology analyzer considers an object to be energized if it can be traced to an active bay. For a bay to be considered active, the following applies:

•The bay must be of type Substation bay, otype=707000. Other bay types are ignored.

•There must be a traceable path from the bay to a feeding busbar without open switching devices in between.

•The bay must have a voltage level (subtype) that is in the configured accepted subtypes list.

•The bay must have a lower voltage level than the station it belongs to.

 

The alternative Power and earthing can look like this:

 

The alternative Power, earthing and feeding bays can look like this:

 

Coloring divided on outgoing bay

It is not certain that all components in the traced network is recolored. Connecting devices for example, can have different color depending on the connection state and that color may have a higher priority than the trace color.

Color tracing is interrupted at voltage change. Normally color is defined per bay in primary substation, but can also be defined for outgoing groups in secondary substation.

Primary substation bays and (if applicable) secondary substation groups can be assigned a color. The choice of color is important to get the best visual separation for different bays at different feeds.

Assigning a bay color is available in different ways depending on the customer configuration. In the standard case, the color is defined directly in the attribute form for the bay.

1.Right-click on the object and select Show/change attributes.

2.In the Dynamic coloring section, select the desired color. The color will be updated momentarily in the map and schema.

If no colors are assigned, random colors are used.

 

Example of a network that has different colors per feeding bay

 

Coloring of earthing networks

Coloring of an earthing network works in the same way as the energized trace but in reverse. What is called an equivalent source in the energized trace corresponds by the earthing in this trace.

Neutral point networks are excluded from the coloring of the earthing network.

 

One temporarily earthing is applied, most part of the shown network is an earthing network

 

If a network that has power and is connected to an earthing network, due to faulty network documentation or faulty switch state for example, that part of the network is shown with divergent drawing attributes. The system will give you a warning if something is not right before an operation is executed.

If the warning is ignored, the network is clearly displayed as connected to both an equivalent source and earth.

 

Example of presentation of a network that  both have power and is earthed

 

Coloring of multi-fed objects

An object is considered multi-fed when it can be traced to more than one active feeding bay according to the topology engine. In the default configuration, multi-fed objects are highlighted in bold yellow.

Example of a multi-fed network

 

To analyze which voltage sources and feeding paths affect an object, the Show path to source function can be used.

Select Tools > Trace > Show path to source.

This function can be combined with dynamic coloring to identify multi-fed objects and understand the current status of the network. To view the voltage source and the path to it, see section Show path to source.

The function Show path to source lists the feeding bays

 

Troubleshoot

•Restart the topology analyzer via Operator > Reset the topology analyzer.

•Check that links are in state In use via Show > States.

•Check that all links are posted via File > Show changes. Operator is best run in an empty changeset.

•Check galvanic connection via Tools > Trace > Standard (fast) > Complete.

•Check that there is an equivalent source in the network. If no part of the network is shown as energized despite correct switching mode, this may be the cause.