Development, Demonstration, and Validation of Power Hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) Testbed for DER Dynamics Integration in Southern California Edison (SCE)

The significant growth in the integration of distributed energy sources (DERs) and the interactive behaviors between inverter controllers and protection system draws up considerable challenges. Their validation and adoption require careful assessment in modeling, simulation, and testing. The traditional approach focusing on a detailed model, while substantially simplifying the remainder of the system under test, is no longer sufficient. Real-time simulation and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) techniques emerge as indispensable tools for validating the behavior of Photovoltaic (PV) inverters and their impact/interaction on/with the feeder protection system. This paper aims to describe a detailed the development, demonstration, and validation of a PHIL testbed for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) integration that encompasses the test setup architecture, hardware components, software systems, communications, and integration. Ultimately, the result of performance validation of the developed testbed at the Sothern California Edison (SCE) test facility is presented for a test scenario as an example.