Hardware-in-the-loop testing of a battery energy storage controller for harbour area smart grid: A case study for Vaasa harbour grid

Abstract

A battery energy storage controller (BESC) can balance the mismatch of power demand and supply and improve flexibility and resiliency of seaport microgrids. However, it is required to test functionality of the BESC, and validate that it can balance the power supply–demand imbalance by charging and discharging the battery. The main objective of this study is to implement hardware-in-loop (HIL) tests for validating the controller’s functionality. This article investigates the testing performance of the BESC that will be used in harbour grids to adjust for the mismatch of power supply and load demand by appropriately charging and discharging the battery energy storage system. The proposed BESC can effectively save energy and reduce peak load demand in harbour grids with limited transmission and distribution network power capacities. The BESC is initially developed offline in MATLAB/Simulink and then implemented in a FPGA based external controller interfaced with the OPAL-RT real-time simulator by using the IEC61850 communication protocol and GOOSE messages. The BESC is configured and implemented on the external FPGA board. In addition, real data from the local distribution system operator Vaasan Sahkoverkko and the harbour operator Kvarken port of Vaasa have been utilized to evaluate the efficacy of the suggested control algorithm for the battery energy storage system with a realistic scenario. The simulation findings indicate that the BESC can balance electricity demand within the microgrid by charging and discharging batteries.