Real-Time Digital Simulation of Electromagnetic Transients of Large Power Systems

IEEE Kitchener - Waterloo Section

&

ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

University of Waterloo

Presents a Seminar on

Real-Time Digital Simulation of Electromagnetic Transients of Large Power Systems

Professor Reza Iravani, Fellow IEEE
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Traditionally, applications of the digital real-time (RT) simulator in power system studies were limited to performance evaluation of relay/protection systems. In such applications, a small part of an interconnected
system is simulated in a RT simulation environment and the simulated signals are communicated to a physical relay/protection platform in an "open-loop" fashion. Recent proliferation of electronically-coupled
apparatus in power systems has introduced unconventional and more sophisticated controls that often include custom-tailored and proprietary hardware/software modules which do not lend themselves to the
conventional digital time-domain simulation methods and in particular to RT simulation methods.  Consequently, the concept of control hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), based on RT simulation of power system, has emerged as the approach for design, development and testing of hardware-based control platforms. In spite of the recent developments in microelectronics and the availability of powerful processors, technical challenges and excessive cost, associated with RT-HIL platforms for representing a
realistic-size system, have not been addressed. This presentation:

• highlights barriers to real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulation of large power system;
• discusses recent R&D trends, in hardware and software, to enable real-time simulation of a
realistic-size power system at reasonable infrastructure cost;
• presents examples of RT-HIL simulation case studies.

Speaker: Reza Iravani received his B.Sc. degree in 1976 (Iran) and until 1979 worked as a consulting engineer. He received his M.Sc. (1981) and Ph.D. (1985) degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Manitoba, Canada. Presently, he is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests include modeling, control, and
dynamics of interconnected HVDC-AC power grids.

Invited by:
Professors Kankar Bhattacharya & Claudio Canizares