Real-World Environment Validation and Characterization of Microgrid Building Blocks

Microgrids are essential for improving resilience and reliability of the distribution networks, however, diverse and often incompatible microgrid control technologies has impeded rapid scalability and deployment. Microgrid Building Blocks (MBBs) present a potential solution to address these interoperability challenges in control and communication systems. This paper proposes a comprehensive testing and validation framework for MBBs, utilizing advanced National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) physical assets and emulators in conjunction with Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) and Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) simulations, as a part of the ARIES platform. ARIES platform is well-equipped for an analysis of widely-used industrial protocols including Modbus, IEC 61850, and DNP3, as well as emerging communication technologies being used in the energy sector. The framework incorporates a performance metric for system evaluation, focusing on voltage and frequency stability, as well as communication latencies originating from MBB modules. The proposed framework aims to ensure rigorous validation of MBBs prior to their industrial deployment, thereby facilitating standardization and interoperability in microgrid control systems. A test case was performed with practical microgrid to verify the communication impacts.