Testing design for power system software

Complex software systems with new features and functionality are under development for the deregulated power industry. Due to the increased complexity of the design and the operating environment, these new systems become more vulnerable to malfunctions or failures. Quality control becomes more critically important than ever because inadequate quality control can cause devastating effects on the on time and on budget completion of a project or even the failure of the entire system when operated in the field. Testing is one essential way for quality control. How to improve the effectiveness of the testing approach is the key to the success of any software product development. This paper proposes the general testing design methodology for power software developments and illustrates the concept by applying the testing design approach to two typical power software systems, i.e., energy management system and disturbance record analysis system.