Unified Platform for Automated Tests of Inverter-Based Resources with Hardware-in-the-loop

Testing of inverter-based resources (IBRs) faces challenges in establishing standardized procedures across all product development stages. Most of the testing approaches use Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) during the early stages independently from the final product testing, which can lead to discrepant results. To solve these issues, this paper proposes a unified platform for automatically testing IBRs. It can be used during all product development stages, from pure simulation to Controller Hardware-in-the-Loop (CHIL) and finally on the complete commercial product, ensuring uniform test procedures with different test setups. A case study describing compliance tests of grid-connection codes of photovoltaic (PV) inverters are presented to demonstrate the proposed approach. Experimental tests were performed in accordance to Brazilian grid-connection codes in an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory. The results obtained with the proposed platform in CHIL and full-hardware showed high similarity with the ones obtained with the accredited laboratory, validating the proposed approach. In addition, the platform can be used to perform tests not specified in standards and to verify the performance of IBRs in operating conditions that are often difficult to be tested in laboratory. Ensuring consistent test procedures, the platform facilitates comparable results along all the testing stages, reducing the product development cycle.