Distributed Co-Simulation of Networked Hardware-in-the-Loop Power Systems

The paper presents a method to extend existing co-simulation frameworks to emulate quasi-dynamic behavior of real grid components in a grid simulator using a distributed networked co-simulation platform. The platform uses generic socket communication to exchange data between real grid components and the grid simulator. The framework utilizes event triggered models to enable data exchange between grid components and the platform over user datagram protocol (UDP)/IP interface. This framework has its use-case in smart grids as well as microgrids for analyzing, monitoring and control applications where it is impractical to model each component separately inside the grid simulator. Intrinsic communication delays including jitter is handled using built-in fallback strategies inside the framework itself. As a proof-of-concept, a co-simulation between a simulated low-voltage (LV) grid model and an emulation of a simplified Photovoltaic (PV) model is presented. The behavior of PV emulator is integrated in the grid simulator using socket communication. The primary focus of this work is to validate the extended framework. The effect of network delays on the stability of the distributed co-simulation setup are also investigated.