Locally Distributed Digital Real-Time Power System Co-Simulation via Multi-Phase Distributed Transmission Line Model

IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. 60, pp. 8137–8146

Abstract

The intrinsic complexity of smart grids requires computer-aided power system analysis to evaluate novel monitoring and control strategies and innovative devices. Due to the enormous computational requirements and the necessary Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) and Power Hardware-In-the-Loop (PHIL) applications, real-time power system simulation plays a fundamental role in this context. However, performing real-time simulations in a monolithic way, i.e. exploiting a single Digital Real-Time Simulator (DRTS) rack, could result in the inability to create reliable and accurate digital twins of increasingly complex power systems such as smart grids. This paper proposes a locally distributed digital real-time power system co-simulation to link different DRTS and scale up the viable Power System Under Test (PSUT). It exploits Aurora 8B/10B to manage the data exchange and a Distributed Transmission Line Model (DTLM) to split the PSUT into the two real-time simulation environments. Furthermore, the multi-phase DTLM permits the absorption of the communication latency, which normally occurs in real-time co-simulation, into the propagation model of a transmission line. With the presented setup, a time step duration of 50 μs proves to be stable and accurate when running a co-simulated Electro-Magnetic Transients (EMT) analysis of a power grid scenario by interconnecting two commercial DRTS (i.e. OPAL-RT) with comparable results compared to the monolithic simulation, extending the scalability of future real-time smart grid simulations.

Authors 7

1. Luca Barbierato

   Politecnico di Torino

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy

2. Steffen Vogel Aachen E.ON Energy Research Center

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Daniele Salvatore Schiera

   Politecnico di Torino

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy

4. Enrico Pons

   Politecnico di Torino

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy

5. Lorenzo Bottaccioli

   Politecnico di Torino

   Affiliation as printed

   Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy

6. Antonello Monti Aachen E.ON Energy Research Center

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

7. Edoardo Patti

   Politecnico di Torino

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy