Power-Hardware-In-Loop Setup for Power Electronics Tests

Evaluating the power electronics behavior in real grid conditions is challenging. In simulation, large grids and complex systems can be simulated, however the power electronics, simulated with simplified models, cannot show realistic performances, due to the difficulty to quantify paramenters such as delays, damping, and noise impact. On the other hand, lab experiments give more accurate analysis, but in smaller scale than the simulation, due to space and resources limitation. The Power Hardware In Loop (PHIL) evaluation solves this problem, simulating complex grids in software, and interfacing them with real hardware by means of an interface converter. In this work, the PHIL is applied to the Smart Transformer (ST) case in order to show the full benefit of this technique.