A Distributed Multimodel Cosimulation Platform to Assess General Purpose Services in Smart Grids
Luca Barbierato, Abouzar Estebsari, Lorenzo Bottaccioli, Enrico Macii, Edoardo Patti
Abstract
Future smart grids with more distributed generation and flexible demand require well-verified control and management services. This article presents a distributed multimodel cosimulation platform based on smart grid architecture model to foster general purpose services in smart grids. It aims at providing developers with support to easily set-up a test-bed environment, where they can simulate realistic scenarios to assess their algorithms and services. The proposed platform takes advantages of internet-of-things communication paradigms and protocols to enable the interoperability among different models and virtual or physical devices that compose a use case. Moreover, the integration of digital real-time simulators unlocks hardware-in-the-loop features. To test the functionality of our platform, a novel scheme of fault detection, isolation, and restoration is developed, in which communication and interoperability of different functions and devices are crucial. This service is applied on a realistic portion of a power grid in Turin, Italy, where devices communicate over the Internet. Finally, the laboratory experimental results achieved during a real-time cosimulation are discussed.