DER Dynamics Integration Demonstration Using Power Hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) Testbed in Southern California Edison (SCE)

The significant growth in the penetration level of grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) inverters raises considerable challenges due to the interactive behaviors between inverter controllers and protection systems. To meet these challenges, utilities have begun employing California Rule 21 compliant smart inverters with grid support features to mitigate the adverse impact during abnormal conditions. Validating these attributes and interactions requires a rigorous assessment in modeling and simulation. Real-time simulation and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) techniques have paved the way for validating the behavior of inverters and determining the interactions. This paper describes the development and demonstration of a PHIL testbed for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) integration. The paper also encompasses demonstration results of use cases at the Southern California Edison (SCE)’s DER laboratory to verify the grid support functionalities and their impact on the protection system of a highly integrated inverter-based DER-dominated distribution feeder.