Hardware-in-the-Loop Techniques in Teaching Power Electronics for Renewable Energies

Practical exploration of advanced power electronics and renewable energy systems in educational environments faces limitations due to their complex nature and high costs. To overcome this, the use of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) techniques and its extension, power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL), are proposed. This contribution explores the application of these techniques from three distinct perspectives: HIL concept, presenting as a proof of concept the real-time simulation on a real-time simulator (RTS) of a buck converter controlled by an external control card; PHIL concept, where the proof of concept consists of the RTS implementing the model of a battery that interacts with a real load; and finally, the rapid prototyping concept, that presents as proof of concept the implementation on the RTS of the control of a synchronous buck converter.