A framework for efficient evaluation and comparison of EES Models

Electrical energy systems (EES) are systems which consume, generate, distribute and store energy at various scales, ranging from smart systems-on-chip to smart grids. Simulation of EES is a critical task, as it allows to validate system dimensioning and to foresee system lifetime under specific load conditions. This paper proposes a modeling and simulation framework based on the standard language SystemC. The framework is designed for enhancing EES simulation with a high modularity. This allows to evaluate alternative models for EES components, to determine a tradeoff between accuracy and simulation performance. The paper formalizes energy and information flows by defining interfaces for the typical components of EESs (e.g., energy storage devices, power sources, converters). Then, it proposes a methodology to seamlessly plug such components into the simulation framework, by adopting models at different levels of detail. Simulations highlight effectiveness and modularity of the proposed approach and prove its accuracy with a comparison w.r.t. Matlab/Simulink.