ETAP Reviews

As an Electrical or Power Engineer, it is very for Load Flow, Short Circuit Analysis, Discrimination Study and Etc...

It is very expensive in terms of Cost -Wise. Students and any Professionals can't use this except the Free Demo for 30 days unless he having money.

The software is good for asset management, real time simulation and for everyday problem solving on all designs

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

User-friendly. results are very clear. the processing is fast.

It is extremely expensive. It may require more options for modeling the structure.

ETAP has supported the nuclear power industry by designing and supplying software for our specialized analytical needs for over 20 years. They have become the defacto standard for nuclear plant power system analysis throughout the U.S. with over 90% of plants and utilities standardizing on ETAP.

Although it may sound like I’m making this up, after using this software through all of its many evolutions over the years, I honestly can’t think of anything.

Provides many of the engineering calculations for design and analysis of electrical power, protection and control systems in one software package. It is a necessity in providing our customers the best designs and arc flash analysis.

I have to set up my defaults and tools the way that I like to use them and display them when I get a new version. I would like ETAP to add L-G faults for 1-Phase center-tapped sources.

The software is easy to use and fairly intuitive.

There are often products that are not available in the library.
Formatting can be very tedious and time consuming despite some of the "auto" formatting options. Default settings need to be set up on a per project basis, this is both frustrating and time consuming.
Exporting information to excel could be so helpful but there is some info that can only be found in "reports" and when these are exported to excel they are formatted to reflect a report style not just raw data which makes it very difficult to use this data efficently if you are creating your own report.

The software is easy to use by first-time learners without much background. It is useful to develop and analyze power system networks particularly power flow studies, fault analysis, and protection coordination. The one-line diagram approach and report generation are quite useful.

The library should be updated with modern power system components to simulate various current scenarios. The scope of studies should extend similar to PSCAD and EMTP softwares.

I like it the most how user friendly it is and that it gives me the comfort that the results are correct.

There are a certain things that are different in this software compared to others. E.g. there is no "save as", only "copy project to" and you have to open it afterwards (if you want to work on the new project). And copy - paste is different than in any other software. It doesn't bother me anymore, but it's weird.

I always enjoyed working with etap because of the quality of the software and accurate results.Plus the fact that the reports don't look like from a type writer the way SKM looks.

Recently they sent Costumer service for the Library for USA to India. This has caused a response time of 2-3 hours to get extended to 3-4 days and the professionalism of the staff in India is not to the US standards.

ETAP is friendly to new user. And it covers all the required electrical calculation we may encounter in the work.
The technical support is good basically. We can always call technical support for help.

The lower version ETAP can't open a higher version ETAP file. ETAP is updating new version while we may use various version.

This software provides a very friendly interface and variety of tools that ease the process of design in our field. Also the customer service has always solved our questiones promptly.

Several features and tools are limited or restrained unless you purchase the full package.

Lots of good options, can be difficult to understand these options.

Must pay for each option, need training on these options..

Having used SKM and Easy Power, ETAP by far is the most accurate and easy to use power Analysis software. ETAP library is outstanding and easy to use. ETAP single lines also let you very closely represent the actual system in the field. We even rebuilt one facility after Hurricane destroyed all drawings.
The Customer service is also excellent and very helpful.
I have used ETAP since 1998.

Most of the Issues encountered over the years have been fixed or addressed.

The use of ETAP for the subjects of Energy Distribution Systems, Electric Machines and Power Systems, has been the best option, due to the intuitiveness of the software and that the students rely on to understand the topics seen in class.

José Simeón Cañas University received a donation of the student version ETAP software, but we would have liked that student version were more modules enabled and limited in nodes of analysis.

Short circuit and star device coordination

Data base did not have enough info of iec rated devices and equipments

I like how the help feature can be directly accessed from each pop up window. The help window is usually very thorough and provides addiditonal references.

I would like the ability to delete elements between revisions, not just modify them

modularity; updated machine models; better user support than other PSA's

Cost and then again cost; etap isn't yet the top choice for T&D applications

It is solely for the benefit of electrical engineering works which require load flow studies, short-circuit current level ,discrimination and devices coordination etc .The software is validated and verifiable for carrying out the parametric runs.

It is not freely available. Microsoft provides Office Applications freely on-line. Likewise, the versality of ETAP can be realised pathway as cited above is adopted.

Very Complete, lot of modules available. Great customer service, quick answers. Also quick to upgrade when there is change in IEEE, NFPA and other reference documentation. Great HELP functions.

Price; quite expensive.
And as it is very complete, it is also complex, It akes a lot of time and practice to learn how to operate it. And if you are a long time without using it, it takes time again to get used to it again. Lot of parameters to configure for the different equipment.

Accuracy in provided data, wide product library

Lack of some common products (e.g. cable library)

I liked that ETAP can produce arc flash labels for you without having the user do manual calculations. The Scenario wizard makes it easy to study different configurations for the circuit

I wish there was a function in ETAP that allowed the user to print select labels for equipment, instead it prints labels for the system voltage which is fine, I just wish there was a function in the software to make select lables for select equipment loads

Can perform complete electrical analysis of plant power system prior to adding new loads

There is no room in scenario Wizard to put description of the designed study case.

User friendly, with good explanations in HELP

Annual support fee is hard to justify and obtain approval when there is minimum project