A hardware-in-the-loop testbed for distributed energy generation penetration analysis

This paper presents a real-time hardware-in-the-loop testbed to analyze the impact of distributed generations distribution level system. The IEEE 15-bus node distribution feeder has been developed in MATLAB and is connected to two real time inverter based distributed generators through the dSPACE hardware interface. The power flow outputs of the inverters are controlled by local decentralized TI C2000 modular microprocessor boards. The proposed hardware setup is designed so that it can easily be modified to a new distribution system infrastructure without making any changes in the hardware setup. The results of power flow control for distribution level lines, power loss reduction and voltage profile improvements as well as reactive power compensation from the actual distributed generators are compared for the different level of penetrations. The experimental results are compared with the simulation results to verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the decentralized controller on the proposed test bed.