Modbus TCP/IP Based BESS Plant Controller Operations for a Peak Shaving Application

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) coupled with vendor plant controller and reliable communication can provide practical peak shaving solutions to the utility grid. This can be achieved by incorporating day-ahead charge/discharge set-point evaluation strategies in the BESS plant controller. This paper implements a simple peak shaving strategy in the real-time hardware-in-the-loop laboratory testbed and open platform (HILLTOP), detailing the integration process for the BESS inverter, plant controller, and conventional Modbus TCP/IP communication protocol. Also, the potential compatibility of the TCP/IP-based BESS plant information and control signals with the IEC 61850 communication standard has been investigated.