Real-time simulation of energy management in a domestic consumer

Recent and future changes in power systems, mainly in the smart grid operation context, are related to a high complexity of power networks operation. This leads to more complex communications and to higher network elements monitoring and control levels, both from network´s and consumers´ standpoint. The present work focuses on a real scenario of the LASIE laboratory, located at the Polytechnic of Porto. Laboratory systems are managed by the SCADA House Intelligent Management (SHIM), already developed by the authors based on a SCADA system. The SHIM capacities have been recently improved by including real-time simulation from Opal RT. This makes possible the integration of Matlab^®/Simulink^® real-time simulation models. The main goal of the present paper is to compare the advantages of the resulting improved system, while managing the energy consumption of a domestic consumer.