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Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids

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A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2021) | Viewed by 26034

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Rohjans

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Department of Information and Electrical Engineering, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Berliner Tor 7, 20099 Hamburg, Germany
Interests: co-simulation; data modeling; distribution system automation; energy information systems; information and communication technology; interoperability; power systems simulation; smart grid
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Thomas Strasser

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1. Electric Energy Systems, Center for Energy, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Giefinggasse 2, A-1210 Vienna, Austria
2. Institute of Mechanics and Mechatronics, TU Wien, Getreidemarkt 9/325, A-1060 Vienna, Austria
Interests: power utility automation; modeling and (real-time) simulation of smart grid systems; ICT for smart grids; validation and testing of smart grid systems; hardware-in-the-loop experiments; industrial automation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Lehnhoff

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OFFIS – Institute for Information Technology, Escherweg 2, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany
Interests: agent-based simulation; distributed computing; distributed control systems; electrical power engineering; energy information systems; multi-agent systems and autonomous agents; power systems simulation; smart grid

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Simulations are becoming more and more crucial in the field of future energy systems. This is because of the increasing complexity of energy systems that consist of a variety of subsystems such as supply infrastructures, production, consumption, markets, communication, meteorology, etc. Simulation tools provide the possibility to simulate models of these subsystems. The objective of co-simulation is to combine and run those models in one coordinated simulation. However, such simulations are becoming more and more complex, making it improbable that the user of a simulation (e.g., the designer of a subsystem or one of its aspects) is the same person that develops the simulation system.

In general, sophisticated component design methods, intelligent information, and communication architectures, automation and control concepts, new and advanced markets, as well as proper standards, are necessary in order to manage the higher complexity of such intelligent power systems that form a smart grid.

Due to the considerably higher complexity of such cyber-physical energy systems, it is expected that the design and validation of smart grid configurations will play a major role in future technology and system developments. However, an integrated approach for the design and evaluation of smart grid configurations incorporating these diverse constituent parts remains evasive. Validation approaches available today focus mainly on component-oriented methods. In order to guarantee a sustainable, affordable, and secure supply of electricity through the transition to a future smart grid with considerably higher complexity and innovation, new simulation-based design, validation and testing methods appropriate for cyber-physical systems are required as key parts of the overall design and validation approaches.

Papers that present results related to simulation-based validation and the design of smart grid systems are particularly welcome for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Rohjans
Dr. Thomas Strasser
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Lehnhoff
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Design and validation methods for smart grid technologies
modeling and simulation of smart grid systems
co-simulation-based assessment methods
real-time simulation and hardware-in-the-loop experiments
AI-based simulation approaches

Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 5576 KiB

Open AccessArticle

MOSAIK and FMI-Based Co-Simulation Applied to Transient Stability Analysis of Grid-Forming Converter Modulated Wind Power Plants

by Nakisa Farrokhseresht, Arjen A. van der Meer, José Rueda Torres and Mart A. M. M. van der Meijden

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(5), 2410; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11052410 - 09 Mar 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2911

Abstract

The grid integration of renewable energy sources interfaced through power electronic converters is undergoing a significant acceleration to meet environmental and political targets. The rapid deployment of converters brings new challenges in ensuring robustness, transient stability, among others. In order to enhance transient stability, transmission system operators established network grid code requirements for converter-based generators to support the primary control task during faults. A critical factor in terms of implementing grid codes is the control strategy of the grid-side converters. Grid-forming converters are a promising solution which could perform properly in a weak-grid condition as well as in an islanded operation. In order to ensure grid code compliance, a wide range of transient stability studies is required. Time-domain simulations are common practice for that purpose. However, performing traditional monolithic time domain simulations (single solver, single domain) on a converter-dominated power system is a very complex and computationally intensive task. In this paper, a co-simulation approach using the mosaik framework is applied on a power system with grid-forming converters. A validation workflow is proposed to verify the co-simulation framework. The results of comprehensive simulation studies show a proof of concept for the applicability of this co-simulation approach to evaluate the transient stability of a dominant grid-forming converter-based power system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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19 pages, 845 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Validation of EMT Digital Twin Models for Dynamic Voltage Performance Assessment of 66 kV Offshore Transmission Network

by Saran Ganesh, Arcadio Perilla, Jose Rueda Torres, Peter Palensky and Mart van der Meijden

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(1), 244; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11010244 - 29 Dec 2020

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3071

Abstract

The increase in Power Electronic (PE) converters due to the increase in offshore wind energy deployment have given rise to technical challenges (e.g., due to unprecedented fast dynamic phenomena) related to voltage and frequency stability in the power system. In the Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs), the currently available current injection-based voltage control for PE converters are not suitable for voltage control in PE dominated systems due to the absence of continuous voltage control and ineffectiveness during islanding. Moreover, in such power systems, the conventional controllers are not suitable for frequency control due to the absence of dynamic frequency control. The paper presents the Direct Voltage Control (DVC) strategy in a real-time environment to mitigate challenges related to voltage and frequency stability during islanding of OWFs. The control strategy is implemented in the average Electro-magnetic Transient (EMT) model of Type-4 Wind Generator (WG) in RSCAD^® Version 5.011.1. It is compared with the benchmark model of the control strategy in DIgSILENT PowerFactory^TM 2019 SP2 (×64) in EMT platform. The comparison based on short-term voltage stability and reactive current injection reveals that both the models provide similar results, confirming the validation of the RSCAD model. Moreover, the detailed representation of the converters in the RSCAD model provides a better depiction of the real-world operation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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24 pages, 13593 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hardware in the Loop Platform for Testing Photovoltaic System Control

by Víctor Samano-Ortega, Alfredo Padilla-Medina, Micael Bravo-Sanchez, Elías Rodriguez-Segura, Alonso Jimenez-Garibay and Juan Martinez-Nolasco

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(23), 8690; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10238690 - 04 Dec 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2302

Abstract

The hardware in the loop (HIL) technique allows you to reproduce the behavior of a dynamic system or part of it in real time. This quality makes HIL a useful tool in the controller validation process and is widely used in multiple areas including photovoltaic systems (PVSs). This study presents the development of an HIL system to emulate the behavior of a PVS that includes a photovoltaic panel (PVP) and a DC-DC boost converter connected in series. The emulator was embedded into an NI-myRIO development board that operates with an integration time of 10 µs and reproduces the behavior of the real system with a mean percent error of 2.0478%, compared to simulation results. The implemented emulator is proposed as a platform for the validation of control systems. With it, the experimental stage is carried out on two controllers connected to the PVS without having the real system and allowing to emulate different operating conditions. The first controller is based on the Hill Climbing algorithm for the maximum power point tracking (MPPT), the second is a proportional integral (PI) controller for voltage control. Both controllers generate settling times of less than 3 s; the MPPT controller generates variations in the output in steady state inherent to the algorithm used. For both cases, the comparison of the experimental results with those obtained through software simulation show that the platform fulfills its usefulness when evaluating control systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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21 pages, 1087 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Comparisons of Broadband Power Line Communication Technologies

by Young Mo Chung

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(9), 3306; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10093306 - 09 May 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3321

Abstract

Broadband power line communication (PLC) is used as a communication technique for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in Korea. High-speed (HS) PLC specified in ISO/IEC12139-1 and HomePlug Green PHY (HPGP) are deployed for remote metering. Recently, internet of things (IoT) PLC has been proposed for reliable communications on harsh power line channels. In this paper, the physical layer performance of IoT PLC, HPGP, and HS PLC is evaluated and compared. Three aspects of the performance are evaluated: the bit rate, power spectrum, and bit error rate (BER). An expression for the bit rate for IoT PLC and HPGP is derived while taking the padding bits and number of tones in use into consideration. The power spectrum is obtained through computer simulations. For the BER performance comparisons, the upper bound of the BER for each PLC standard is evaluated through computer simulations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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16 pages, 4836 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Resiliency Assessment of Microgrid Systems

by Mariam Ibrahim and Asma Alkhraibat

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(5), 1824; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10051824 - 06 Mar 2020

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 2560

Abstract

Measuring resiliency of smart grid systems is one of the vital topics towards maintaining a reliable and efficient operation under attacks. This paper introduces a set of factors that are utilized for resiliency quantification of microgrid (MG) systems. The level of resilience (LoR) measure is determined by examining the voltage sag percentage, the level of performance reduction (LoP_R) as measured by percentage of reduction of load served, recovery time (RT), which is the time system takes to detect and recover from an attack/fault, and the time to reach Power Balance state (T_b) during the islanded mode. As an illustrative example, a comparison based on the resiliency level is presented for two topologies of MGs under an attack scenario. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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21 pages, 1588 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Virtual PLC Lab Enabled Physical Layer Improvement Proposals for PRIME and G3-PLC Standards

by Asier Llano, Itziar Angulo, David de la Vega and Laura Marron

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(5), 1777; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10051777 - 04 Mar 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3588

Abstract

Narrowband (NB) powerline communication (PLC) is extensively adopted by utilities for the communication in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems. PLC technology needs to overcome channel disturbances present in certain grid segments. This study analyzes improvement proposals of the physical layer of the main narrowband PLC technologies approved by international communication organizations that are currently deployed in Europe: Powerline Intelligent Metering Evolution (PRIME) 1.3.6, PRIME 1.4, and G3-PLC, in order to improve PLC performance under channel disturbances. This thorough study is based on simulations carried out by an innovative ad hoc Virtual PLC Lab, developed by the authors, applied in replicable, fully-automated, and cost reduced test scenarios. The analysis is performed by applying standardized test methods and metrics, and by evaluating the influence of a set of representative channel disturbances defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and selected noises generated by distributed energy resources (DER) in normal operation. PLC performance improvements in terms of equalizer curve fitting, error correction codes, and noisy subcarrier suppression mechanisms are presented. The performance gain due to each physical improvement proposal is accurately measured and compared under the same conditions in a replicable and automated test environment in order to evaluate the use of the proposals in the evolution of future PLC technologies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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14 pages, 1314 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Model-Based Virtual Components in Event-Based Controls: Linking the FMI and IEC 61499

by Michael H. Spiegel, Edmund Widl, Bernhard Heinzl, Wolfgang Kastner and Nabil Akroud

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(5), 1611; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10051611 - 28 Feb 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2107

Abstract

Various development and validation methods for cyber-physical systems such as Controller-Hardware-in-the-Loop (C-HIL) testing strongly benefit from a seamless integration of (hardware) prototypes and simulation models. It has been often demonstrated that linking discrete event-based control systems and hybrid plant models can advance the quality of control implementations. Nevertheless, high manual coupling efforts and sometimes spurious simulation artifacts such as glitches and deviations are observed frequently. This work specifically addresses these two issues by presenting a generic, standard-based infrastructure referred to as virtual component, which enables the efficient coupling of simulation models and automation systems. A novel soft real-time coupling algorithm featuring event-accurate synchronization by extrapolating future model states is outlined. Based on considered standards for model exchange (FMI) and controls (IEC 61499), important properties such as real-time capabilities are derived and experimentally validated. Evaluation demonstrates that virtual components support engineers in efficiently creating C-HIL setups and that the novel algorithm can feature accurate synchronization when conventional approaches fail. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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17 pages, 4401 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on Optimized Energy Scheduling of Rural Microgrid

by Ziqi Liu, Junjie Yang, Wei Jiang, Chunjuan Wei, Pengpeng Zhang and Jiahui Xu

Appl. Sci. 2019, 9(21), 4641; https://doi.org/10.3390/app9214641 - 31 Oct 2019

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2836

Abstract

This paper introduces a new rural microgrid model, including residents and agricultural greenhouses. Based on the new model framework, the precise energy scheduling of a rural microgrid is realized by means of load classification and load forecasting. Moreover, we also adopt a new energy-storage mode, cloud energy storage (CES), as the shared energy-storage unit of rural microgrid, and analyze the service and operation mechanism of CES in detail. The shared storage characteristic and adjustable storage capacity of CES are helpful for the precise management of power dispatching. At the same time, in order to accurately implement energy scheduling, we fully consider the load characteristics of rural areas and divide the load into residential load and agricultural load. Then the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) algorithm is used to predict the short-term power consumption of the two types of load respectively, which can effectively alleviate the uncertainty of load power consumption and improve the accuracy of scheduling. Finally, an illustrative example of rural energy scheduling is given. The example studies the impact of energy-storage capacity on the cost of the scheduling scheme, and designs a power-dispatching scheme based on load forecasting, which accurately solves the energy charging and discharging planning and grid energy trading planning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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14 pages, 3734 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dynamic Behavior of a Sliding-Mode Control Based on a Washout Filter with Constant Impedance and Nonlinear Constant Power Loads

by Miguel Monsalve-Rueda, John E. Candelo-Becerra and Fredy E. Hoyos

Appl. Sci. 2019, 9(21), 4548; https://doi.org/10.3390/app9214548 - 26 Oct 2019

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2375

Abstract

Power converters (PCs) with their control techniques help regulate voltages of nodes in microgrids with different types of loads such as resistive, inductive, nonlinear, constant power, or critical loads. However, constant power loads (CPLs) affect the stability of the voltage in the output of PCs and are usually difficult to regulate with traditional control techniques. The sliding-mode control (SMC) with the washout filter technique has been recently proposed to address this issue, but studies that consider the phenomenon and parameters present in real systems are required. Therefore, this paper focuses on evaluating the dynamic behavior of an SMC based on a washout filter using three different loads: A constant impedance load (CIL), a nonlinear CPL, and a combination of CIL and CPL. The CIL considered a resistance connected to the circuit, whereas the nonlinear CPL was designed by using a buck converter with zero average dynamics and fixed-point induction control techniques (ZAD-FPIC). The tests consisted of creating some variations in the reference signals to identify the output voltage and the error that the control brings according to the different loads. Besides, this study focuses on representing the dynamic behavior of signals when loads change, considering quantization effects, system discretization, delay effects, and parasitic resistors. Additionally, bifurcation diagrams are created by changing the control parameter

k

and plotting the regulated voltage and the error produced in the output signals. To illustrate the advantages of the SMC with the washout filter technique, a comparison was made with other techniques such as the proportional–integral–derivative (PID) and conventional SMC by varying the load. The results showed that SMC with the washout filter technique was superior to the PID and the conventional SMC because it stabilizes the signal faster and has a low steady-state error. Additionally, the control system regulates well the output voltage with the three types of load and the system remains stable when changing the parameter

k

for values greater than 1, with a low error in the steady-state operation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation-Based Validation and Design of Smart Grids)

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