Microgrid testbed

Manuscript
Tobias Baumgartner
Seminar: Cyber Security in Smart Grid and SCADA Systems, June 18, 2015
baumgarr@fim.uni-passau.de

Introduction

Todays power grids are in transition. In former times, only centralized, huge
power plants (producing energy with water, nuclear power, fossil fuels) produced
energy. They are scalable and so the generation of power orientates on the current demand. Renewable energy sources like solar collectors and wind turbines
have a highly oscillating power generation. Because they have been getting more
common in many countries, the scalability decreases.
The smart grid concept tries to solve this problem. The goal is to establish
a communication network to collect information about power demand. Thereby,
the demand becomes scalable and can be matched with the current availability
of energy (thus wind, sunshine, etc.).
Microgrids can play a major role in a smart grid. Though it can be part of a
larger grid, it acts completely autonomously if necessary. Large blackouts like in
India 2012 (9% of world population affected) show that there has to be a solution
to prevent large energy outages. Microgrids as islanded grids are best suitable for
such purpose. Furthermore, you can control several decentralized energy sources
(like small solar plants on each roof) completely isolated from the centralized
power grid. The advantage is a climate-neutral power generation. To achieve
this, they need several components. [3] [1]

Potential components in microgrids

The main parts of every microgrid are two components: generator and load.
The generator can be everything that produces power, e.g. wind turbine, diesel
generator or biogas plant. In this paper I rely on renewable energy sources only,
more precisely wind turbines. To ensure the power supply around-the-clock, an
additional energy storage is needed. It helps out when a lull in the wind occures
and the power demand is higher than the generation.

Microgrid Model

Before simulating a grid in PSCAD, you have to build a proper model. In this
section I will describe the used components and show their circuit diagrams. I
will make several assumptions to simplify the process.

The first item to build in the model is the wind turbine generator. In PSCAD,
it consists of 4 components: the wind source, the mechanical wind turbine, the
wind turbine governor and - for power generation - the synchronous generator.
Each of them has several parameters to set, thereby [2] offers a nice example
with realistic physical values.
The wind source defines the wind speed. I assume a fixed wind speed of 13 m
s
without disturbing factors like gust or ramp wind.
The mechanical wind turbine has three blades and no gear. The wind turbine
governor regulates the turbines output, either with dynamic or passive pitch
control. I use dynamic one, so the blades can turn around their longitudinal axis
to keep the output power constant.
The synchronous generator converts the mechanical energy (provided by the
wind turbine) into electric power. In this model, a permanent magnet generator
is implemented by setting certain parameters to certain values. The advantage
of a permanent magnet is a constant excitation of the generator without an
additional power.
The next is the battery model.
Then is a load.

Fig. 1. Model of wind turbine generator

Simulation

The simulation can be executed after modeling the circuit in PSCAD. I will
choose several parameters (like active/reactive power, voltage, etc.) and show
the output diagrams and describe their meaning. Especially, it will be interesting
how the system behaves when a line-to-ground fault occurs.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the gained insights.

References
1. T.E. Del Carpio-Huayllas, D.S. Ramos, and R.L. Vasquez-Arnez. Microgrid transition to islanded modes, 2012.
2. Cedrat. Wind Turbine Aplications, January 2006.
3. Toby Considine, William Cox, and Edward G. Cazalet. Understanding microgrids
as the essential architecture of smart energy. In Grid-Interop Forum, 2012.