Labview for a small community Microgrid smiluation

[Control_Engineer]

Hello all;

I would really appreciate your help and guidance.

I am a Control Engineer, doing my Master's Thesis on the Control of Microgrids (On a Scada/DCS Level). 

I have never used Labview before; However, I have a good experience in Control and Programming.

My aim is to model a Microgrid for a small residential community in the UK, without using any hardware, to simulate the interaction between the loads and renewable energy generation, and perform some cost/power optimization analysis.  I am also intending to include a Main Grid connection in my simulation.

The system that I am aiming to simulate would consist of a small Solar Farm, Battery storage, and a diesel generator; pretty much similar to the following case study:

http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-16647#prettyPhoto

I have read the previous discussions regarding that topic and found some advice on using Multisim in conjuction with Labview; However, I would rather only use labview if that is possible.

My questions are:

1-Is it technically feasible  to complete such a scope of work (Modelling + Simulation) using Labview only without adding any hardware? or do I have to use Multisim or simulink to simulate any parts of the system?

2-Are there any Labview "Renewable Energy"/"Micro Grid Parts" templates, or do I have to build everything from scratch?

3-What would be the main steps for creating that scale of work?  Should I, for example, create a VI for each section of the Microgrid, and a main VI to manage them all together?
4-Could anyone guide me to an example of a similar functioning project so I can use it as a reference ?  It doesn't have to be related to Microgrids; just any similar project can be a good refrence.

My time frame for completing that work is three weeks maximum, but I am fully dedicated for it.

I really appreciate your help.

Kind Regards;

Mahmoud

[Control_Engineer]

I have checked the mentioned case study, and found that it has been implemented using a combination of Labview + Single-Board RIO.  http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-16647#prettyPhoto

Is it possible to model and simulate the microgrid without using the Single-Board IO?

[cbutcher · Accepted solution]

You can use MAX (Measurement and Automation Explorer) to add a simulated device, if you wanted. This would allow you to pretend you have a sbRIO. However, it will require more effort to communicate with a board that doesn't exist, talking to panels, houses and meters etc that don't exist.

It should be possible but I would guess a large amount of the time required would be taken up by creating software houses and panels and so on, and allowing them to communicate as accurate stand-in replacements for real houses or panels.

If you don't want to do this, it might be simpler. However, then you'd need to rewrite the entire thing if you wanted to test it in some kind of semi-hardware-based model.

You should take a look at the Actor Framework if you intend to have (potentially large numbers of) independent parts of code communicating with one another. The OOP nature of the AF means creating simulated objects in place of the real objects becomes a little easier (but you still need to decide how they should respond to messages). 

[Control_Engineer · Accepted solution]

Hello cbutcher, thanks a lot of your reply.

So for the purpose of simulating without using hardware, do you think using Matlab + Simulink would make more sense ?

Kind Regards;

Mahmoud

[shansen1 · Accepted solution]

You should look into the LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation toolkit. This is designed to do exactly what you are looking for. We use this product all the time to do simulations of various power electronics and other electrical systems including microgrids.

If you don't want to use Multisim you will need to build the models yourself, but it can be done.

[Control_Engineer · Accepted solution]

Hi Shansen1;

Thank you very much for your help and reply.

My biggest concern is the time frame; I am looking to complete this model/simulation in three to four weeks maximum.

Do you believe this is something that can be done? and are there any libraries for the individual parts or will I have to create everything from scratch?

Kind Regards;

Mahmoud

[shansen1 · Accepted solution]

That is hard for me to say as I don't know your background. There are many tools and libraries available within LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation that can help you build a model within LabVIEW. There are two main ways to build your model:

1) Implement the calculations manually. If you can write out your microgrid model as a set of differential equations, you can simply use basic math operations (multiply, divide, add, etc) to calculate each dx/dt and then use the Integration block (part of Control Design and Sim palette) to integrate and get 'x' for each state.

2) Build a state space matrix for the microgrid, then use the State Space VI to implement the model (located on the palette under Control & Simulation -> Simulation -> Continuous Linear Systems -> State Space.vi).

There are also some examples built into LabVIEW to get you started. In LabVIEW, go to Help -> Find Examples to open the example finder. Check out these two examples:

- Control and Simulation -> Simulation -> Controllers -> SimEx DC Motor Position Control with PID.vi

- Control and Simulation -> Case Studies -> Electrical Machines -> Wind Turbine with DFIG - Wind Power Limitation.vi.

Both of these VIs should give you an idea of how you can build your models. Note that in the Wind Turbine example they have nicely packaged up their models into "subsystems", which are really just sub VIs. To open a subsystem right click on it and select "Open Subsystem". See picture below: