Energy Systems Planning and Operation Laboratory
Smart Microgrid
The Smart Microgrid has been installed in the electrical network of Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and established in 2017. The Smart Microgrid comprises diverse generation and consumption assets that communicate bidirectionally with a monitoring and energy management system. This test-bed infrastructure allows researchers and practitioners in smart energy sector to run and test applications such as forecasting and energy management models. The potential benefits of Smart Microgrid are:
- To provide a data-base on electrical and climatic measurements.
- To assess the performance of inverters, batteries and PV panels.
- To run and test energy and climatic forecasting software.
- To run and test monitoring and energy management software.
The main parts of Smart Microgrid are:
Energy management system
Electrical network
Generation and load
Advanced metering and communication infrastructure
Electrical network
The electrical generation and consumption assets are interconnected through a hybrid AC/DC network. The AC network includes 380 V three-phase lines, as well as 220 V single-phase lines. Additionally, the DC network provides links with 48 and 120 V.
Generation and load
All generators and loads can be connected or disconnected through smart switches.
The Smart Microgrid benefits from diverse generation assets including main grid, a hybrid off-grid PV-storage system, and an on-grid PV generating unit. The hybrid off-grid PV-storage system is characterized by 1 kW PV generating unit, and four 12V-200Ah batteries connected in series and controlled by a hybrid power controller. The capacity of on-grid generating unit is also 1 kW.
Diverse loads such as lights, elevators, HVAC systems, official and educational appliances (e.g., personal computers, video projectors, printers, appliances in classrooms and laboratories) are connected to the Smart Microgrid. Saloon lights and session room are supplied from 5 single-phase feeders connected to the off-grid PV-storage system. Other loads are connected by 15 three-phase feeders that can supplied from the main grid and the on-grid PV generating unit.
Advanced metering and communication infrastructure
Electrical parameters such as voltage, current, active and reactive power are measured by smart meters. Additionally, climatic parameters such as solar irradiation, wind speed, outdoor temperature, and panel temperature are measured by sensors located on the roof of Faculty of Electrical Engineering. All data are communicated to a monitoring software based on RS-485 protocol and saved in the data-base in each minute. The energy management system can also send decisions to smart switches time by time. This bidirectional communication infrastructure provides a test-bed to run forecasting and energy management models near real-time.
Monitoring and energy management system
The monitoring software, as well as forecasting and energy management applications is run in an energy management server; a windows-based personal computer with Core-i7 CPU 4 GHz, 32 GB RAM. The monitoring software visualizes electrical and climatic measurements, and is an interface between the applications and the communication hardware.