Software-based hardware-in-the-loop real-time simulation of distribution systems

A major step in the process of designing the controllers of a distribution systems is to test the performance of the controller devices. Testing the controllers with a traditional hardware-based real-time simulator is an effective approach for validation of the controllers. However, it is very costly. This paper introduces a software-based real-time simulator, which is a simple but useful tool for evaluating the controller hardware that will eventually implement the control algorithms in the field. In the proposed structure, the distribution system is simulated in PSCAD (an offline power system simulator) and the control algorithms are implemented in a physical controller hardware. An algorithm is proposed to enforce PSCAD to run in real-time under certain conditions. Therefore, the developed interfacing structure and real-time enforcement scheme provide a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) real-time simulation tool that can test the performance of controllers in a system. The proposed simulator is validated by several experimental case studies.