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At the University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard (UTBM) in Belfort, France, energy and electric engineering students use Typhoon HIL to control a multi-purpose laboratory bench, containing different types of machines and converters. In the context of a student project, students contributed to the application of a Typhoon HIL HIL402 system with the goal of controlling the multi-purpose platform. Learn…

The Fukushima Renewable Energy Research Institute, part of Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), is a leading global facility for testing and evaluating high-power electronics converters. Similar to renowned institutions like Sandia National Laboratories in the US and the Austrian Institute of Technology in Europe, AIST is dedicated to advancing renewable energy te…

This article is the second in a series from the Microgrid Conference Panel 2019 – Making Sure Your Microgrid Will Work: Risk Reduction with Controller Hardware In the Loop (C-HIL) and Model-based Engineering. It focuses on the experiences shared by Qiang Fu, Regional Technology Manager at Eaton, who was one of the panelists at the session.

In this spotlight, we speak with Sau Ngosi, CTO of Residential Solar and Storage at Schneider Electric, about how smart inverter manufacturers can speed up development without compromising quality. The Conext XW Pro solar hybrid Inverter/Charger is the latest solution for solar with storage, backup power, self-consumption, and off-grid power. Sau discusses his team’s comprehensive quality assurance process,…

For this spotlight, we traveled on-site to meet the brilliant team behind Schneider Electric’s active harmonic filters division in the quiet town of Salem, Oregon. Nicolas LaRue, global offer manager for Schneider Electric’s AccuSine products, discusses how Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) technology gives his customers peace of mind. HIL, a model-based design and testing tool, simulates power electronics and…

As Europe’s premier research and technology organization, the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) bridges the gap between industry and research by utilizing innovative solutions to key infrastructure issues. Zoran Miletic, Senior Research Engineer and Power Electronics Design Specialist at AIT, discusses how AIT developed its powerful pre-certification toolbox to design and test smart grid converters f…

Modern grids, including emerging microgrids and advanced shipboard power systems, increasingly rely on communication and control networks to manage countless smart power electronics devices, such as solar inverters, wind turbine inverters, and battery storage systems. These devices use various communication protocols like Modbus, IEC 61850, and DNP3, making a well-integrated communication toolbox essential …

Interconnecting distributed energy resources (DER) to the grid in the United States necessitates compliance with standards such as the National Electrical Code (NEC), UL 1741, and IEEE 1547. The latter two standards were updated in late 2016 to accommodate smart inverters, driven largely by California’s regulatory efforts. These updates introduced requirements for grid-support functions like voltage and fre…