Real-time Control of Smart Grids using NI CompactRIO

Smart Grids (SG) have emerged as a remedy for the constantly increasing demand on energy. Control is and will continue to be the most crucial element in a SG. The integration of renewable energies and smart devices opened the door for many controllers to be used in order to help fulfill the objectives of SGs. These controllers are used to control and monitor the energy produced by the renewable sources, the energy consumed by the different loads and appliances, and the energy flow between the electrical grid, the storage module, and the produced energy. In this paper, we are presenting an architecture of a real-world SG featuring the NI CompactRIO controller. The SG is deployed in a university campus as a testbed. We are also describing a control algorithm based on a state machine deployed in the NI CompactRIO controller using the LabVIEW programing language.