scope:

This standard defines a format for files containing transient waveform and event data collected from power systems or power system models. The format is intended to provide an easily interpretable form for use in exchanging data. As such, it does not make use of the economies available from data encoding and compression that proprietary formats depend upon for competitive advantage. The standard is for files stored on physical media such as digital hard drives and diskettes. It is not a standard for transferring data files over communication networks.