Utility-Scale Power Grids with MATLAB, Simulink, and Simscape Electrical
Analyze, design, and simulate large-scale power grids containing distributed energy and inverter-based resources
Power system engineers rely on MATLAB, Simulink, and Simscape Electrical to design, simulate, and validate power grid architectures and control strategies across transmission and distribution networks. These products provide analysis and modeling capabilities for simulating the new generation of inverter based resources (IBRs), such as renewable resources, microgrids, energy storage systems, and EV charging networks so you can:
- Model and simulate wind and solar energy system architectures and control strategies, using high fidelity electrical and control models
- Perform integration and stability studies for connecting renewable and distributed energy resources (DERs) to the grid, ensuring compliance with utility and regional grid codes
- Evaluate microgrid and energy storage system performance, including supervisory control, dispatch algorithms, and grid forming/ grid following inverter behavior
- Analyze the impact of large scale EV charging on distribution networks, assess power quality effects, and prototype grid aware charging coordination strategies
Develop Wind and Solar Farm Architectures
Simulink and Simscape Electrical provide a library of prebuilt, parametrized electrical component and system models, enabling you to develop renewable energy system architectures.
- Model and simulate wind turbines and photovoltaic (PV) arrays for standalone analysis, or within a broader transmission and distribution system
- Include energy storage components such as hydrogen systems, supercapacitors, and batteries in your design
- Study the steady-state and dynamic response of the renewable energy system by running desktop simulations
- Explore system configurations and find the optimal system design for generation and storage
- Consider electromagnetic transient (EMT) and phasor simulation, and timescales from microseconds to years
With Simulink and Embedded Coder, we can show our customers and grid operators a simulation that incorporates the actual code that will run in our power plant controller. That’s what grid operators want, and it gives Vestas an advantage over competitors who still use conventional approaches.
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Design Control Systems for Renewable Energy Systems
Simulink and Simscape let you design control strategies for voltage and current regulation, frequency stabilization, and maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and test controls for renewable energy systems and their storage systems.
- Simulate active/reactive power response and implement protection mechanisms
- Analyze power quality issues and mitigate them by using converters with phase balancing or active filters
- Identify design errors early in the process (with Simulink Design Verifier), create test cases for the controls (with Simulink Test), and check test coverage (with Simulink Coverage)
- Generate defect-free, optimized C code for the controller from Simulink models
- Generate code for the plant and perform real-time testing on the control algorithm with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing under normal and fault operating conditions
Using Model-Based Design, we can shorten the entire cycle from requirements to prototype testing by more than five times.
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Analyze Grid Integration and Stability
As the power grid introduces inverter-based resources (IBRs), the stability and protection offered by large spinning inertias is lessened. MATLAB, Simulink, and Simscape help engineers assess the impact that renewable energy and energy storage will have on power quality and grid stability. Power system engineers can model the effects of IBRs, such as additional harmonics introduced, voltage and frequency instability, interactions due to fast responses, and fault ride-through.
Perform Grid-Scale Integration Studies
With Simscape Electrical, you can integrate a renewable energy system with a grid model. This integration enables you to test your power management strategies against the grid, ensuring compliance with different grid codes.
- Establish operational scenarios in a repeatable way across different system architectures
- Model and run multiple operational scenarios in parallel
- Replay field data, such as voltage step tests or grid events, to compare the model against the measurements
- Evaluate voltage and frequency performance against grid codes, such as IEEE 1547 and NERC PRC-024, for compliance checks
Perform Grid Simulation to Analyze and Optimize System Response
You can perform grid simulations to study larger-scale and localized grid behaviors during fault and normal operating conditions using MATLAB, Simulink, and Simscape Electrical.
- Perform power plant model validation with automated parameter estimation, data replay, and both offline step-tests and online performance monitoring to address regulatory requirements
- Apply optimization tools to automate parameter tuning, inform adjustments to equipment sizing and placement, and test distributed energy systems against grid codes such as IEEE 1547
- Analyze operational behavior by performing Monte-Carlo simulations of the transmission and distribution system with different network configurations
- Automatically generate and publish reports to capture the output of simulation studies using MATLAB Report Generator
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Videos and Examples
- Implementation of a Probabilistic Power Flow System at Eversource Energy (21:01)
- Energy Speaker Series - Module 1: Transmission System Operations - Improving System Performance and Reliability (1:07:46)
- Integrating Measured Data with Simulations for Automated Model Calibration (35:05)
- Model Static Synchronous Compensator Using Voltage Source Converter
- Mixed AC/DC System Loadflow
Design and Analyze Microgrid, EV Charging, and Energy Storage Systems
Engineers use MATLAB, Simulink, and Simscape Electrical to develop the next generation of microgrids, smart grids, and EV charging infrastructure. They can model and simulate network architecture, perform system-level analysis, and develop energy management and control strategies.
MATLAB, Simulink, and Simscape Electrical help engineers estimate the sizing of electrical components, such as batteries, PV arrays, and backup generators. These products let engineers explore system operations, assess system feasibility, and optimize system configurations by modeling the system and running simulations in parallel.
Design Microgrid Power Systems
Design and perform analysis of microgrids using MATLAB, Simulink, and Simscape Electrical.
- Integrate the microgrid system model with the utility grid model
- Understand and predict the impact of variable power sources and loads on distribution networks and the utility grid
- Develop supervisory control and energy management systems for different power sources and loads
- Use HIL simulations to test microgrid energy management algorithms with a real-time machine
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Videos and Examples
- Energy Speaker Series - Module 4: Power System Optimization - Virtual Power Plants and Microgrids (33:00)
- Implement Droop Controllers for Islanded Operation of Remote Microgrids (3:55)
- Microgrid Energy Management System (EMS) using Optimization
- Microgrid Resynchronization with Main Grid
- More Microgrid Examples
Analyze EV Charging Systems
Simulink and Simscape Electrical provide an environment for designing EV charging infrastructure. These products let you design charging systems with different power requirements (such as AC charging, low-power DC charging, and high-power DC charging) and of varying scales.
- Implement solutions for vehicle-to-grid integration
- Study the impact of different charging system architectures on the power system
- Implement control strategies that can mitigate load issues and respond to rapid changes in charging demand
- Perform capacity studies to set a proper scale of charging infrastructure for meeting a given demand in a designated area
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Design Energy Storage Systems
You can use Simulink and Simscape products to model energy storage systems to simulate their connection to a power grid and design control strategies to smooth variability and provide peak shaving during high demand.
- Model and simulate the battery system or other means of energy storage and the balance of the electrical plant, such as inverters, generators, and switches
- Use the plant model simulation to develop and verify the energy management system closed-loop and supervisory control algorithms across a range of operating conditions
- Perform power system studies of the energy storage system as part of a larger power system
- Generate defect-free, optimized C code for the energy storage system controller from Simulink models
- Generate code from the Simscape model of the energy storage system and other electrical components to perform HIL testing under normal and faulted operating conditions
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