A multi-microgrid laboratory infrastructure for smart grid applications

The Electrical Energy Systems laboratory will be described in this paper. The EES lab includes two microgrids combined with the Electrical Machines laboratory microgrid. Two of them are single phase and one of them is a three phase microgrid. The components installed include PVs, Small Wind Turbine, Batteries and Loads. A description of the various components and their operation is provided. A SCADA is used to monitor and control microgrid components through an HMI. The communication infrastructure will be described and the SCADA functionalities will be presented for the single phase microgrid. In addition, the laboratory Hardware in the Loop test bed used to test DER control algorithms and power components will be presented. A Multi-Agent system platform that includes smart load controllers for testing distributed controls will also be described. Furthermore, the future laboratory infrastructure will be presented, where all three microgrids are interconnected. The future SCADA will integrate all three microgrids and will take advantage of state of the art communication protocols and data interoperability standards. The new SCADA system will enable for faster implementation and testing of microgrid control algorithms, since researchers will not carry the burden of low level communication and data engineering.