Microgrid & Grid Connected Design & Simulation

Microgrids comprised of multiple power converters, generation sources, distributed loads, and complex control schemes used to be hard to simulate. Not any longer.

Smart grids, distributed generation, solid-state transformers, and microgrids are words that can cause apprehension to designers and researchers. They come with the question: How are we going to simulate it? Grid modernization is easy to talk about, ensuring a stable, robust, and secure grid requires simulation. Users of our tools design converters working together covering a wide range of applications:

PV microgrids and grid-connected systems with distributed and bidirectional energy storage
Satellites with PV and battery working to power many different Point of Load, POL converters
Down hole applications in oil & gas
Electric drive trains with bi-directional energy storage & POL converters for planes, trains, & automobiles

Whatever you use the word “microgrid” to define, the blazing speed of DSIM and the feature-rich functionality of PSIM will allow you to design, simulate, & test so much more.

Play nice!

Power converters typically don't play nice with each other. You need to ensure that your grid will play nicely with each other.

Lose the simulation bottle neck

Some topics, like reactive & real power sharing with droop control, require simulation lengths of several seconds. Simulating it shouldn't take a week.

No more sacrifice with DSIM

Average models, reduced complexity, partial systems, reduced switching speeds etc. are compromises you should not make when simulating your microgrid.

System Level Simulation

The word microgrid can be used to describe a wide variety of systems, but they all likely contain multiple power converters, power sources, and loads. Power sources could be batteries, PV/Solar, Wind, diesel generator, the utility gird, etc, Power will need to flow from the sources to the loads, and will likely need to be bi-directional if batteries are involved. Modular and Multilevel converters are allowing for more power to be handled and the reliance on large magnetics for power transformation to be greatly reduced; however, there are more than a couple of different topologies and control techniques available. The complexities and combinations of what a “microgrid” can be are truly endless. Simulating a microgrid is the single most challenging task facing the power electronics industry, DSIM is the revolution we were all waiting for that will make this task possible.

DSIM will allow you to have switching models for your converters and working control loops so that you can be confident that your system will work properly. The current “biggest simulation” contains 1,200 active switches @ 10KHz, with a simulation length of 150ms, was completed in 5 minutes.

Learn More:

Webinar: Microgrid Design and Simulation (1:34:28)
Webinar: Multi-level vs. Level 2 Inverter Comparison (1:15:29)

Long Transient Studies

Microgrids and grid-connected systems typically have transient behaviors that can take seconds to resolve that need to be studied and understood. A good example is droop control for inverters, which means changing the voltage and frequency to change the real and reactive power-sharing. Simulating multiple switching power converters for several seconds used to be challenging and tedious. DSIM can now give you results in a few seconds or minutes instead of hours or days.

Learn More:

Webinar: Microgrid Design and Simulation (1:34:28)
Webinar: Multi-level vs. Level 2 Inverter Comparison (1:15:29)

Sacrificing Accuracy For Speed

Current techniques for the simulation of large systems like microgrids are about compromise or expensive dedicated real-time hardware simulators. Average models are swapped for the switches, switching speeds are reduced, the complexity of the system and number of components get reduced. These simplified systems aren’t actually the system you want to study so the results may or may not be very representative of what you need to study.

Real-time hardware test systems provide some benefit, but also come with limitations on system size, supported topologies, and switching speed. You need to ask yourself the question: Do you really need real-time or just “faster” while maintaining the integrity of your system model.

Learn More:

DSIM Quickie: 10kV 2MW System Simulation with DSIM (1:00)

Webinar: DSIM – A Quantum Leap in Simulation Speed (58:12)

Webinar: DSIM – World’s fastest simulation just got even better (48:42)

Webinar: Microgrid Design and Simulation (1:34:28)