Fuji Electric Co., Ltd.
Power Electronics System Energy Business Headquarters
Power Supply Equipment Development Department
Mr. Kazuyoshi Umezawa, Mr. Motohiro Tsukuta, Mr. Takuya Kimizu (from left to right)
Software is becoming a key value generator for Variable Frequency Drives.
New control algorithm development is driven by new motor designs, new semiconductor switches, and more powerful processors.
System-level interoperability requirements are constantly expanding.
Modular power converter design has become a standard.
Grid code compliance is becoming a requirement.
Software lifecycle maintenance complexity is exploding.
Industry 4.0 is dawning, and digitalization, decarbonization, and decentralization (aka D3) are fueling the electric grid (r)evolution. D3, in turn, creates opportunities for immense value creation, but invokes new technologies and design concepts, and change brings risk.
As the industrial revolution 4.0 is dawning on us, the digitalization of the utility grid and more broadly digitalization of our complete energy system is inevitable. While digitalization brings massive opportunities for value creation, it also brings significant challenges.
Considering the cyber-physical nature of the future grid, where massive amounts of sensors, communications, embedded computing, embedded controllers, and cloud software will dominate the operation and performance, industry leaders are embracing new design, test, deployment and life cycle maintenance processes based on model based engineering and more specifically model based testing.
At the Microgrid & DER Controller Symposium 2017, the brainchild of Erik Limpaecher from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the ultra-high fidelity controller Hardware in the Loop (HIL) was in the spotlight, and it was glowing. It won the hearts and minds of all power engineers present.
At the workshop center stage, the real, unadulterated industrial microgrid controllers—from Eaton, GE, SEL, and Schneider—were in action. They were directly interfaced and controlling the Microgrid Controller HIL Testbed running real-time simulation comprising 3 feeders with 24 busses, one diesel generator, one natural gas generator with combined heat an power, battery storage, PV inverter, and numerous loads.
This year at the Microgrid & DER Controller Symposium, organized by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Typhoon HIL will be presenting center stage two live Microgrid HIL Testbed demos using the ultra-high fidelity controller Hardware in the Loop (HIL) interfaced with real industrial controllers.
Continuous Integration (CI) is a standard software development practice that requires developers to integrate code into a shared repository at least once a day. Each software commit is then automatically built and tested, allowing developers to detect and fix problems early. By integrating developed code regularly, you can detect errors quickly, and fix them in a timely manner.
Interconnecting distributed energy resources (DER) to the grid, in the United States, requires compliance with a number of standards/grid codes, where three main ones are:
Since the existing versions of UL 1741 and IEEE 1547 (IEEE 1547-2003) were written prior to the development of smart inverters they were being revised in the end of 2016 to cover new grid support, utility-interactive inverters and converters. Revisions of UL1741 and IEEE 1547 came from California. Indeed, in early 2013 regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California Energy Commission (CEC) jointly convened the Smart Inverter Working Group (SIWG).
Hardware in the loop (HIL) is not a new technology. It has been around for twenty-five plus years, and it has been almost exclusively used in the automotive and aerospace industries for test and validation of controller performance and system integration. Although HIL has been synonymous with automotive testing; this is changing.
In 2015, three independent market research companies published three “State of the HIL” reports. All three reports state that after decades of evolutionary HIL developments, there is a new application – HIL for power electronics and power systems.
Although the HIL market for power electronics, microgrids, and power systems is still smaller than either automotive or aerospace, it is the fastest growing segment. The power electronics and microgrid pull is tremendous. Here are a few excerpts from VDC, Markets and Markets, and Frost and Sullivan reports.
“HIL tool spending will grow most rapidly in the energy/power industry….”
“….HIL adoption is accelerating outside of the legacy user base (automotive and aerospace/defense). The rapid expansion of HIL use in several industries including energy/power is helping drive revenue growth.”
