A Real-Time Open Access Platform Towards Proof of Concept for Smart Grid Applications

This paper presents development of real time open access platform towards proof of concept of smart grid applications deployed at Smart Energy System Laboratory of Aalborg University. Discussed on the paper is the architecture and set-up of the platform by elaborating the three main layers: electrical grid layer, ICT & network emulation layer and control layer. DiSC-OPAL, a toolbox built for OPAL-RT real time grid simulation; comprising of models for wide variety of controllable flexible assets, stochastic power sources for wind and solar power plants, real consumption data’s and electrical grid components is presented. A detailed model description of the whole set up and the corresponding functionalities is characterized. To showcase real life application of the whole framework, an overview of two test cases implemented for European SmartC2Net project with focus on control and market integration of low voltage distribution grids is presented