Smart grid research infrastructures in Austria: Examples of available laboratories and their possibilities

The large-scale roll out of renewables in several regions in the world has led to changes in the planning and operation of the power systems. They are becoming visible nowadays on all voltage levels in distribution and partly also in transmission grids. This creates additional challenges to energy utilities due to their stochastic generation behavior. Sophisticated component design methods, intelligent information and communication architectures, control concepts as well as proper standards are necessary in order to manage the higher complexity of future intelligent power systems. Due to the considerable higher complexity of such Smart Grids powerful research infrastructures are necessary to design and validate future developments. The main aim of this paper therefore is to provide an overview of available Austrian laboratories, their possibilities as well as various scenarios on the example of the SmartEST lab from the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology as well as the Hybrid Energy Lab from the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Vienna.