Power Converters Based Advanced Experimental Platform for Integrated Study of Power and Controls

Abstract

With increasing interest in smart grid and renewable energy, significant investments have been allocated to promote related studies. Since there is a wide spectrum of topics to study, it is necessary to have an advanced experimental platform that can accommodate both system- and component-level studies, both hardware and algorithm designs, and both teaching and research. Unfortunately, such experimental platform is not commercially available. In this paper, an advanced power electronics based experimental platform is introduced. The system is consisted of one OPAL-RT real-time simulator, two one-bus microgrid testbeds, and two modular multilevel converters. The subsystems can form a multiple-bus microgrid testbed if connected through emulated power lines. The system can provide real-time simulation, controller hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation, and power HIL simulation for power systems study. Various converter topologies can be configured with the modular converters for power electronics study. Both real-time simulator and DSP control boards can be used to implement advanced control algorithms. The designs and experiences shared in the paper will benefit many researchers that are in need of such system and promote power and energy related studies.