Implementation of a Microgrid Model for DER Integration in Real-Time Simulation Platform Konstantina Mentesidi Electrical & Electronic Engineering Department Public University of Navarra Pamplona, Spain mentesidi.74525@e.unav arra.es Evangelos Rikos Department of Photovoltaics and Distributed Generation CRES Athens, Greece vrikos@cres.gr Vasilis Kleftakis and Panos Kotsampopoulos School of Electrical and Computer Engineering National Technical University of Athens Greece vkleft@mail.ntua.gr Mikel Santamaria and Monica Aguado Grid Integration Department CENER Pamplona, Spain maguado@cener.com Abstract—Comprehensive analysis of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) integration requires tools that provide computational power and flexibility. In this context, throughout this paper PHIL simulations are performed to emulate the energy management system of a real microgrid including a diesel synchronous machine and inverter-based sources. Moreover, conventional frequency and voltage droops were incorporated into the respective inverters. The results were verified at the real microgrid installation in CRES premises. This research work is divided into two steps: A) Real time in RSCAD/RTDS and PHIL simulations where the diesel generator´s active power droop control is evaluated, the battery inverter´s droop curves are simulated and the load sharing for parallel operation of the system´s generation units is examined. B) microgrid experiments during which various tests were executed concerning the diesel generator and the battery inverters in order to examine their dynamic operation within the LV islanded power system. Keywords— Power hardware- in- the- loop (PHIL); RSCAD/ RTDS; droop control. I. INTRODUCTION The transition to distributed generation systems requires dynamic and flexible tools for simulation and testing. An approach for studying such systems’ dynamic behavior is by means of real time simulation [1]. The most considerable advantage of this type of simulation platform is that the system can be interfaced to real hardware components, generally called as hardware under test (HuT). This is widely known as hardware-in-the-loop simulation and particularly when the HuT is a power device, as Power hardware-in-the-loop simulation (PHIL) [2]. Real time simulations and especially PHIL allow for testing and validation of the electrical properties of power system devices such as converters, wind energy generators, hybrid and energy storage systems. This kind of experimenting gives the possibility to test repeatedly and analyze the behavior of the physical device, very close to realistic conditions [3-5]. For instance, the hardware part can be subjected to several simulated fault incidents and its resulting response can be verified. Several researches involve the PHIL concept using the Real Time Digital Simulation (RTDS) [6] as a powerful tool to perform flexible and high-speed real time simulations [1-3], [7- 14]. RTDS uses a graphical environment to build up the simulated network of any complexity. The deployment of PHIL simulations in the domain of DER integration is relatively constrained up to now. An implementation of real time simulation of distributed generation systems in RTDS was accomplished by NTUA [3]. Within this research work, a thorough description of the design and development of a PHIL set-up for DER devices is validated through laboratory experiments. Specifically, a PHIL implementation of a voltage divider was performed and the closed-loop synergy between a simulated LV network and hardware such as PVs and inverter was demonstrated. The objective of the current paper is to execute real time simulations in RSCAD/RTDS of a LV islanded power system’s energy management, to study its control strategy i.e. droop control and conduct PHIL laboratory tests as a data reference for verification. The hardware part utilized throughout these experiments was a variable resistive load of 105.8 Ohm. Moreover, for tests aiming at analyzing the energy transfer in an AC microgrid, a set of experiments were conducted related to the diesel generator and the battery inverters that were available in CRES premises. The paper is structured as follows: Section II describes the microgrid case study for the simulations. An overview of the real-time simulation and the implementation of the PHIL environment for executing the tests described in this paper are given in Section III. Finally, Section IV describes the simulation, PHIL laboratory and experimental test results. II. MICROGRID CASE STUDY The present research work was jointly completed by ICCS- NTUA and CRES research infrastructures. In the former PHIL simulations were executed to emulate the behavior of a LV islanded power system including a diesel genset and inverter- based sources. Moreover, f-P and V-Q droops were incorporated into the respective inverters. The results were then verified at the real microgrid site in CRES premises. Fig. 1 illustrates the CRES microgrid infrastructure. ＹＷＸＭＱＭＴＷＹＹＭＲＳＹＹＭＱＯＱＴＯＤＳＱＮＰＰ＠ﾩＲＰＱＴ＠ｉｅｅｅ ＲＲＷＴ