Digital Twin Approach for Remote Monitoring of Microgrids

Monitoring of remote microgrids helps in providing better service to the consumers. Prior idea of location/nature of fault and/or device malfunction saves a lot of time for the maintenance engineer during outrages. Thus, the off-site monitoring of microgrids ensures the proper operation as well as efficient work execution during clearance of fault as it gives an idea for the visiting engineer about the location of fault and malfunctioning devices. In this paper, a digital twin based scheme is presented for monitoring the power flow of remote microgrid. Digital twin is a real-time, physics based simulation integrated with the real physical system and provides the estimate of different characteristics in real-time. A physics based digital twin of the remote microgrid (wherein DGs are controlled with conventional droop scheme) is modeled using simulation and the power flow of the microgrid is monitored using digital twin model. The scheme is validated on a real-time simulation platform (RTSP) for different type of loads. Different cores of the RTSP are used for implementing the physical microgrid system and digital twin based monitoring scheme.