Instrumentation and Measurement of a Power Distribution System Laboratory for Network Reconfiguration Studies

At Drexel University, instrumentation and measurement of the reconfigurable distribution automation and control laboratory (RDAC) include hardware and software instruments which together form an automated measurement and control system. This system contains special features that were included to enable network reconfiguration and switch placement studies. Several instruments were developed to perform two network reconfiguration experiments, specifically load balancing and service restoration. This paper presents an outline of the measurement and control system for the general laboratory and then focuses on the capabilities purposely added for the network reconfiguration experiments