ERIGrid Holistic Test Description for Validating Cyber-Physical Energy Systems

Abstract

Smart energy solutions aim to modify and optimise the operation of existing energy infrastructure. Such cyber-physical technology must be mature before deployment to the actual infrastructure, and competitive solutions will have to be compliant to standards still under development. Achieving this technology readiness and harmonisation requires reproducible experiments and appropriately realistic testing environments. Such testbeds for multi-domain cyber-physical experiments are complex in and of themselves. This work addresses a method for the scoping and design of experiments where both testbed and solution each require detailed expertise. This empirical work first revisited present test description approaches, developed a newdescription method for cyber-physical energy systems testing, and matured it by means of user involvement. The new Holistic Test Description (HTD) method facilitates the conception, deconstruction and reproduction of complex experimental designs in the domains of cyber-physical energy systems. This work develops the background and motivation, offers a guideline and examples to the proposed approach, and summarises experience from three years of its application.

Achievements, experiences, and lessons learned from the European research infrastructure ERIGrid related to the validation of power and energy systems

“…A holistic view on testing procedures is illustrated in Fig. 2(a) which is one of the core elements of the ERIGrid validation concept [8][9][10]. At the outset, this procedure template connects the system definition and use cases with a test objective in a test case.…”

Distributed Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing Using a Grid-Forming Converter as Power Interface

“…The required modifications to satisfy this constraint are described in Section 5.1. For the purpose of Power System in the Loop (PSiL) testing, the paper follows the terminology of Heussen et al [23]:…”

Experiences with System-Level Validation Approach

“…To this end, some internal and external programs have been defined to use the available research infrastructures provided by ERIGrid. From 2016 to 2020, ERI-Grid enabled more than 100 research projects, in which most of the research teams used the Holistic Test Description (HTD) approach [1] for documentation of the test procedures and results as an effective system-level validation approach. This pool of HTD experiences created a valuable potential to collect feedback, validate the methodology and therefore presented a chance to refine the methodology.…”