Hardware-in-the-loop real-time simulation test-bed for smart grid design, control and performance verification

Abstract

The effectiveness of real-time simulation is approved by its reputation in many engineering domains, and, recently, it has been widely appreciated by power system and smart grid research vendors. More importantly, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation, as one of the important applications of the real-time simulation, is a great asset for validation tests of real-time system's components before implementation on the actual grid. This paper presents the real-time simulator and the test bed developed in the University of Waterloo, Smart Distribution Systems Research (SDSR) Lab, using the real-time simulator established by OPAL-RT Co. In addition, results of a case study which is implemented in RTS including a Lab-based model of the electric vehicle battery and the charger connected to the grid as well as the controlling strategy are illustrated here.