Dynamic Modeling and Real-Time Simulation of Wave-to-Grid System

Effective hydrodynamic and electrical modeling is crucial for studying wave energy integration into a power system. WEC-Sim, an open-source package compatible with MATLAB, can simulate the hydrodynamic behavior of a wave energy converter (WEC). The wave-to-grid (W2G) system’s electrical modeling encompasses multiple power conditioning stages, with the overall performance of the system being significantly impacted by the dynamics of each stage and their corresponding controllers. This study presents a dynamic model of a fully integrated W2G system, enhancing WEC-Sim’s functionality to integrate WECs into the power grid. The integrated system includes a point absorber reference model 3 (RM-3) WEC modeled with WECSim, a coupled model of an linear permanent magnet generator (LPMG) with an active rectifier, a grid-following inverter, and a super-capacitor-based short-term energy storage incorporated into the DC link within the back-to-back converter to enhance power quality. A mathematical model is derived for each stage of the W2G system, and the model’s performance is verified using the OPAL-RT real-time simulator. The real-time simulation results validate the control dynamics of the developed model.