Automated Interoperable Grid-Support Function Testing in a C-HIL Environment

Overview

Grid codes aren’t sexy. Automate testing of smart grid converter functions for grid code compliance.

It is increasingly difficult to test megawatt-scale inverters due to huge investments and safety concerns attributed to full-scale voltage and current level testing.

Moreover, constantly evolving grid code requirements demand more detailed testing and faster time to market for distributed energy resources (DER) vendors and system integrators.

Don’t worry if you couldn’t attend our live webinar with the world-renowned research institutions Sandia National Laboratories and the Austrian Institute of Technology. We have recorded the whole session and you can get it by filling the form to the right.

Jay Johnson is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Jay leads several multidisciplinary renewable energy research projects including the coordination of advanced distributed energy resource interoperability testing in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia through the Smart Grid International Research Facility Network (SIRFN). Jay also spearheads a multimillion dollar DER management project to provide voltage regulation and distribution protection through state estimation, optimization, and DER communications; he directs multiple research projects focused on power system cybersecurity and ran a laboratory-directed research and development project on Virtual Power Plants to provide ancillary services.

Zoran Miletic is a Senior Electrical Engineer who has been leading product development of power electronics converters for Renewable Energy Applications for over two decades. He worked for leading companies like Xantrex Technology Inc, in Canada and Schneider Electric Solar, Europe and Canada. Since 2014 he has been with the AIT – Austrian Institute of Technology. His experience includes the design of power electronics and the control methods for solar MPPT charge controllers, single and 3-phase solar inverters from few KW to several hundred KVA. He is a senior member IEEE and holder of several US and International utility patents.

Attendees will learn about:

• Accelerate the development of advanced grid support functions using Controller Hardware-in-the-Loop technology (C-HIL).
• Evaluate a 34.5 kW Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) Smart Grid Converter (SGC) for a range of DER functions.
• Run grid-support functions for UL1741 SA and IEEE 1547 certification.
• Use an open-source System Validation Platform (SVP) by SunSpec with C-HIL to automate test sequences.