Matpower
Matpower is a free and open-source Matlab toolbox for power system simulation and optimization. It is widely used by academics for research purposes.
There is a lot of Matpower open source cases available all over the internet. Most of the time, those cases are provided as a .m file. This is Matlab code and only Matlab can interpret this kind of data. PowSyBl converter can only import .mat file which is a binary serialization of Matlab case data structure created from .m file.
Matpower cases conversions
To import a Matpower cases, they have to be converted to .mat files first. This can be done using Matlab of course, but it is also possible to use Octave, an open source scientific programming language which is mostly compatible with Matlab. Matpower toolbox can be installed with Octave.
Octave and Matpower installation
To install Octave, please follow the installation guide for your operating system, available on their wiki.
Then, you can download and install Matpower toolbox, following the instructions of the getting started.
Matpower case conversion
In this example, we’ll use the case6515rte.m case file found on Matpower GitHub.
Run Octable in the traditional mode, meaning the mode with the maximal compatibility with Matlab especially for binary serializations.
$> octave --traditional
To convert the case6515rte.m to case6515rte.mat, execute the two following lines:
mpc = loadcase('case6515rte.m');
savecase("case6515rte.mat", mpc);
Note that the loadcase and savecase are functions provided by the Matpower toolbox.