Blog Highlights

• Application: The e-mesh Control is designed for the seamless integration of renewables with traditional energy assets.
• Challenge: Ensuring that multiple e-mesh controls communicate in a coordinated way.
• Solution: Typhoon controller Hardware-in-the-Loop used to design and test e-mesh controls
• Result: Typhoon HIL accelerated e-mesh control development time and increased test coverage.
• HIL Tested means flexibility, reliability, optimized, and great performance.

Blog Highlights

• Hitachi Energy need to integrate various DERs and control multiple loads in a complex system environment.

• Before HIL, Software in the Loop was used to develop control algorithms but a system using real controllers was needed to ensure the system works.
• Controller Hardware-in-the-Loop (C-HIL) gives grid flexibility and adaptability to cover many test cases at an appropriate fidelity.
• C-HIL can be used from the early design phase all the way into operational performance and customer demonstration with factory acceptance testing.
• For microgrids with BESS and solar PV, the seamless transition from grid-connected to islanded mode was demonstrated using C-HIL.
• “HIL Tested” for Hitachi Energy means great performance.
  
  

Highlights

• Typhoon HIL solutions enable Hitachi Energy to push the limits of testing product functionality to cover customer needs throughout the entire product lifecycle.

• Software in the Loop (SIL) supports the development of individual algorithms but a higher fidelity testing environment is needed to ensure the system works as a whole.

• Controller Hardware-in-the-Loop (C-HIL) is a combination of real hardware controllers interfaced with a real-time simulation of the power system.

• Standard models in the Typhoon HIL microgrid library helped save 4-5 months in controller development and testing.

• C-HIL technology increased test coverage in a low-cost environment which ensures great product performance and cost-savings for Hitachi Energy customers.

Highlights

• Decentralization, Decarbonization, and Digitalization are driving emerging technologies for distributed control of microgrid assets.
• Hitachi Energy e-mesh is a vertically integrated system that manages and optimizes distributed energy resources from the device level to the systems control and IoT domain.
• Microgrid control systems optimize the flow of different assets to ensure the supply of electricity is stable and reliable.
• A football arena in Norway uses Hitachi Energy e-mesh solutions to integrate renewables in the urban community with microgrids and energy storage capabilities.
• Communication plays a key role in a distributed controls approach in which a high number of signals are transmitted and received between devices.

Story Summary

• Otis Microgrid at Joint Base Cape Cod, MA is a model for military microgrid projects.
• Controller Hardware-in-the-Loop (C-HIL) increased test coverage for Raytheon Microgrid Controls
• Simulated Power Stage: wind turbine, diesel generator, BESS, and more
• Utility concerns: island-mode protection, cybersecurity, hardware damage prevention.
• Typhoon HIL Solution: safe control testing throughout lifecycle of a microgrid project.

Energy networks worldwide are evolving to become increasingly more decentralized, fueled by new developments in many sectors: Industry 4.0, Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), electric vehicles (EVs), and more. This means a greater need for robust local control and storage systems to avoid dangerous disruptions or blackouts. These factors are driving innovation, particularly in two areas: new power electronic controllers for energy storage and DERs, and new system-level control architectures that can control microgrids effectively in a wider range of conditions. 

What is the challenge? 

The electric power systems are going through a transition that encompasses digitalization, decentralization, and decarbonization. This will lead to more resilient power grids due to the higher adoption of digital technologies, renewable power sources, and new battery storage systems. Everyone will benefit from the enhanced control, efficiency, and maintenance capabilities, but it all has to start from smart test-driven design. There is a need for integrated solutions to improve power system performance which will be data-based, so the systems are built with the end specs in mind and thoroughly tested throughout all possible test scenarios in an automated manner. 

This is an extension of our previous blog relating a ship's power system to a microgrid - interconnected loads (propulsion, C4ISR, propulsion, and auxiliary) and distributed energy resources (power generation, distribution, and energy storage) acting as a controllable entity. We will be describing a layman’s perspective on digital engineering as it applies to microgrid design, building, commissioning, operation, and maintenance or lifecycle of a ship. 

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.