Design and implementation of AC/DC active power load emulator

This paper introduces the design and implementation of a programmable AC/DC active load emulator that has the capability to emulate a very wide range of active power with the ability to change the power with small steps to give flexible load emulation. The developed load emulator can mimic the real time active power characteristic of a daily load pattern which can be used in testing power management algorithms. It gives an easy tool to test the performance of the utility grid by emulating different load profiles like random residential loads and electric vehicle charging stations. Furthermore, it can be used in the shipboard power system to emulate pulsated load. A friendly user GUI is developed in LabVIEW to facilitate the control of the load emulator. Actual hardware implementation steps are explained in details. The initial experimental results show the validity of the developed active power emulator and its capability to mimic different load profiles.