Lab on Self-Organizing Smart Grids

Task:

• Propose a concept for a Lab which supports researchers in the area of self-organizing smart grids
• State the relevant resources (software, hardware, installations) which would be needed for such a lab.

Group 2

Name: EMMMA (Wil, Martina, Marc, Manfred, Anna)

• server running central services for various applications (~ 10k€)
• a number of workstations (~ 5k€)
• tablet computers (10 k€)
• model miniatures of a town with interactive buttons (10 k€)
• real-time HIL power system (RTDS)
• Reference installation "Office Setup" (5 k€)
• Wind turbine, photovoltaic system, batteries (25 k€)
• Reference loads (5 k€)
• Software (Smart metering, Labview, ect.) (price strongly depends on license type)

Group 3

• Participants: Johannes, Andrea, Sven, Oliver, Astrid

Users of the SG lab

• Sensor networks people, distributed system people, ...
• computer scientists interested in the control and communication level of Smart Grids

What do they use it for?

Evolve our approaches & convince power systems people that our approaches perform well in the actual power system in place

We need ...

Abstraction layer to speed up deployment to field trials / component or system focussed testing labs

Grid Simulation or real grid components?

Simulation: commercial? To some extent, e.g. we could use PowerFactory

Time scale

• Several seconds
• Quasi-static grid simulation

Concept

• Evaluate different communication technologies and protocols to see how appropriate they would be for self-organisation approaches in the Smart Grid

--> Emulation platform (Hardware-in-the-loop)

• Understand dynamics in such a system, get to know the main problems

--> Get the sensor data/simulation results in the needed resolution

• Verify simulations: Close enough to reality: hardware
• Evaluate grid & component coordination
• Real time requirements?
• Easily switch between coordination approaches (conventional / self-organised / hierarchical) to evaluate their performance

--> Layered concept with defined interfaces

Group 4

• Participants:

Goal of the Lab

• Test whether self-organising solutions can help in:
  • achieving better performance
  • mastering complexity in control
  • robustness of the overall system
• The long-term goal of the lab is providing tools for live-testing of self-organising solutions

More in practice

• produce hardware/software tools and 
social systems to be deployed to prosumers
  • must be accepted by users
  • must be allowed by providers

Interdisciplinary

• Electrical Engineering
• Informatics
• Information Technology
• Physics
• Sociology
• Economics

The Perfect Lab

• Provide both simulation tools and experimental platforms
• Seamless transition from simulation to the physical apparatuses and back

The Setup of the Lab

• Simulation platform
  • portable language
  • modular
  • characterised against physical devices and realistic user behaviour
• Need a cluster computing service for parallel simulation

The Setup of the Lab

• Playground lab for testing the tools
  • Simulating a single household
• Field tests households (about 20)