EMT-Based Co-Simulation of Power System and Communication Networks

Communication-based devices are extensively used in the power grid, and studying the power and communication systems as a cyber-physical system before their deployment is essential. Co-simulation can be used for studying power system stability, cyberattack detection and mitigation strategies, and controller performance. In co-simulation, both the power and communication layers are simulated simultaneously. Previous work has developed co-simulation platforms; however, it does not provide a comprehensive comparison of different co-simulation platforms. Furthermore, the slow simulation speed of co-simulation in some of the proposed platforms reduces the scalability capability dramatically. In this paper, five cyber-physical co-simulation platforms are implemented using PSCAD v5, and their merits and demerits are comprehensively evaluated.