Applying open standards and open source software for smart grid applications: Simulation of distributed intelligent control of power systems

Open source solutions will enable the acceptance and usage of open standards for smart grid applications. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the possible usage of a distributed automation system for controlling electrical power systems with Distributed Energy Resources (DER). The control approach is based on the IEC 61499 reference model for distributed control system and its open source solution 4DIAC whereas the power system is simulated with the open source software PSAT. In addition, a freely available stack implementation of the IEC 61850 standard for substation automation is used for monitoring the process variables. As an example the coordinated voltage control of an Under-Load Tap Changer (ULTC) is implemented as IEC 61499 control application in the 4DIAC framework and the ULTC model together with a model of the distribution network are simulated in the GNU Octave/PSAT environment.