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TRANSCRIPT
Hello. In this session you will find out moreabout the implementation of distributed energy
resources, also known as DERs, in the TyphoonHIL environment. We’ll cover how to use
them, what are the advantages, and the disadvantagesof each type of DER component. Several different
needs may affect your decision for choosingthe DER type for your project, such as speeding-up
the modeling setup, bridging the domain-specificknowledge gap, or reducing HIL hardware utilization.
The project scope can also be a deciding factor.
In the examples folder you can find premademodels together with dedicated SCADA panels.
These premade examples make it quick and easyto build microgrid models, as we will see
later in the module.
Now let’s open Schematic Editor and createa new model.
Let’s search for the distributed energyresources sub-library in the microgrid library.
Here you can find DER models of energy storagesystems (ESS), photovoltaic power plants,
wind power plants, and diesel gensets.
Let’s quickly note that in the Legacy sub-librariesthere are switching and average components.
Both average and switching models are implementedas three-phase devices. Let’s drag and drop
two battery components: one switching andone average.
From the perspective of controller functionality,these two models are identical. Also, the
parametrization of these components is thesame.
From the perspective of the power stage, theyare almost the same except for one key difference:
the switching model uses a detailed powerelectronics three-phase voltage source inverter component,
while the average model uses three signalcontrolled voltage sources to emulate the
behavior of the inverter.
As you can see here in the switching model,we are using three phase inverters. The three-phase
inverter is controlled by the internal modulator.
In the average model, you can see that signal-controlledvoltage sources are used.
There are instances where you will want toresort to the use of Legacy (Average) components,
especially if there are system design elementsin your project. One example would be if you
need to integrate a battery and the inverteras separate components. Also, using Legacy
(Average) components significantly reducesthe need for the circuit solver resources.
The decision of which component to use dependsmainly on the type of controller/device under
test or DUT.
The Legacy switching components are suitablefor testing a converter controller. The biggest
advantage of Legacy switching components aretheir high-fidelity power electronics models.
Also, they have explicitly defined inputsfor gate control of each semiconductor switch.
In this case, for both design and testingpurposes, the power stage should be modelled
using Legacy switching components where eachPWM output can be mapped to a HIL digital
input pin that corresponds to a particularswitch in the topology.
If you are still in the controller designstage, the added value of using Legacy switching
models comes from pre-implemented controlsubsystems for major DER applications.
Meanwhile, generic components are more suitablefor higher level controls, such as the modeling
and testing of microgrids, energy managementsystems, or battery management system controllers.
Microgrid controllers are the top-level controllersresponsible for steady-state regulation of
voltage and frequency as well as load andenergy management. In contrast to power electronics
models, their slower dynamics can be capturedby the average and generic DER types. Furthermore,
generic components have built-in functionalitiesthat are commonly encountered with real-life
DERs. Those are functionalities that a system-levelcontroller “expects” to exist in order
to have a fully integrated and functionalsystem. Voltage and frequency droop, ramping,
LVRT, voltage and current protection, andstorm control are just a few examples of these
functions. Self-tuning and grid support featuresare a life saver if you have little to no
experience in control engineering and powerelectronics or you simply don’t have time
to work your way up from scratch.
To find out more about the advantages anddisadvantages of each of the components, let’s
open the Microgrid Toolbox DER componentsguide. To find this how-to guide, go to the
Documentation Hub and let’s find the TyphoonHIL applications library.
Here you can find interesting applicationnotes as well as how to guides. How to guides
are a special form of application notes whereyou can find guides, tips, and tricks on various
aspects of using the Typhoon HIL toolchain.
Now let’s open the Microgrid Toolbox DERcomponents guide.
Here we can see several advantages and disadvantagesfor each type of component. You can unlink
Legacy component control sub-systems fromthe library and modify them freely for your
own project. Legacy components offer extensiveparameterization for controller gains and
converter output filter values. However, Legacycomponents utilize converter and machine solvers,
making them more computationally expensive.
Generic components have advantages in termsof automatic model tuning, dedicated communication
interface, and, as mentioned, standardizedDER functions. Also, generic components do
not utilize converter or machine solver resources.
Let’s explore the hardware utilization aspectof these components in more detail. Large
microgrid and power system models increasethe HIL device utilization. With large models,
you may want to maximize the use of averageor generic models in order to conserve hardware
resources. The next table illustrates thetrade-off and the gains in hardware resources
for battery DERs.
In this table we can see that the Legacy switchingmodel utilizes all available power electronics
resources of a core, while the generic componentdoes not, and only utilizes 3 out of the 16
available signal processing sources. Thismeans that we can theoretically fit up to
5 generic components in a core while, we canfit only one legacy switching component per
core. Optimizing our model with this in mindcan expand the number of DERs per model.
Now, let’s look at the same table for thediesel genset components.
The machine solver is a precious resourcethat should be saved for demanding applications,
like power electronics-based motor drives.In a majority of microgrid applications involving
synchronous generators with prime movers,the circuit solver rarely if ever, needs timesteps
on the scale of 1 to 10 microseconds. Hence,with generic components, you can easily build
models with multiple gensets for system-levelapplications without worrying about spending
machine solver resources.
In next three lessons we will look more into the separate DER components, how to use
parametrize them, and what are the tradeoffsfor each individual component.
