Testing Power Plant Control Systems in Modelica

This paper describes the status and findings of the development of a Modelica based test system for power plant controls. The development is part of the ITEA2 project MODRIO which has the main goal to improve the operation of plants by utilizing modeling, simulation and optimization techniques. The control test application shown in this paper demonstrates the usability of Modelica to run comprehensive tests for plant controllers involving large parts of the physical plant and the control system. However it highlights the need for further development, in areas such as: the test system, the discrete part of the models, the Modelica language, Modelica Association standards such as FMI and ModelicaXML and the tool support for these.