Design of a simulation system for analyzing smart grid architectures

Power systems subjected to changes are both in terms of structure and operation. In power generation more and more countries begin to substitute power plants based on fossil fuels for renewable energy generations. At the same time electric vehicles are a new kind of demand in low voltage grids, which have a not negligible demand. For the investigation of new system management as well as Smart Grid architectures a testing environment is necessary. This paper presents a simulation system for testing and analyzing designed control methods or Smart Grid architectures. After a general outline and the formulation of requirements the major components will be described in detail. The designed models for various renewable energy generations and loads as well as for electric vehicles were integrated in the CIGRE benchmark system. Based on first studies´ results the functionalities of the simulation system were analyzed. It was shown that the system is able to simulate key components of Smart Grids like Demand Side Management, Storage System etc.