DERlab members ICCS-National Technical University of Athens, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and RWTH Aachen, together with CAPS-FSU, RTDS, University of Alberta, and TU Berlin, have published a joint paper titled “A Benchmark System for Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing of Distributed Energy Resources (DER)” in the September 2018 issue of IEEE Power and Energy Technology Systems Journal. The paper presents the work conducted within the IEEE PES Task Force on Real-Time Simulation of Power and Energy Systems and supports the goal of the DERlab Association to improve real-time simulation and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) methods.
The challenges for the widespread integration of distributed energy resources require advanced simulation methods as well as a common basis for testing. Real-time HIL simulation based testing has been recognised as an advanced method for the analysis and testing of power system phenomena and components.
Published as open access, the paper proposes a benchmark system for HIL testing incorporating DER into the real-time simulation environment. A low-voltage benchmark system with detailed HIL setup is proposed for the testing of DER performance.
Additionally, the modeling of DER for real-time applications is discussed, and the detailed laboratory procedures and setups for both controller HIL (CHIL) and power HIL (PHIL) are provided. Results from CHIL and PHIL simulations substantiate the suitability of the proposed real-time simulation approach.
The full paper is available here.