gpf User Guide

This guide shows you how to install gpf, load and check a case, solve a power flow, run a study, and understand how the solver models each device.

A case enters as a RAW, RAWX, MATPOWER, or supported OpenDSS file. The parser validates the network and controls before anything is solved. The Newton solver then finds an operating point that satisfies the network equations, device controls, and active limits together.

The solved point is the base for every study in this manual. Transfer, interconnection, dispatch, and transmission-rights analyses use the same case and operating assumptions. A study is defined in a file and rerun from it, so a result is reproducible. Results retain source identities and units, so reports and downstream studies do not depend on array positions.

The examples use the Python API because it exposes every input and result. You can run the same work from the gpf command line or the MCP server. Each chapter gives these alternatives when they are available.

The manual opens with Getting started, which installs gpf and solves a first case. Concepts then defines the vocabulary and source representations used by the rest of the guide. Transmission power flow explains positive-sequence solves, case checks, and diagnostics. Distribution power flow explains phase-domain feeder solves. Mixed transmission-distribution power flow explains region coupling after both regional formulations are known. Time-series power flow then applies ordered operating-point schedules to any of these systems.

Transmission contingency analysis introduces the first study built on a solved point. The tutorials provide complete workflows, and the recipes answer one task in the fewest lines that confirm it. Use gpf from an AI agent connects the same public workflows to an assistant. The modeling reference defines device equations, input meanings, controls, and limits.

Signatures, command-line options, field-level format support, and the case doctor's finding codes are collected in a companion volume, the gpf Reference.