Reactive power compensation in smart micro grids: A prime-based testbed

We consider a smart micro grid where loads and distributed energy sources are jointly controlled with the aim of compensating the reactive power at a local level. A testbed implementing this control system and using powerline communication (PLC) is discussed. In particular we adopt the PRIME communication standard. We first assess the bit error rate of PRIME communication in the presence of typical disturbances due to power inverters associated with distributed energy sources. Then the components of the test-bed are presented, with a particular attention to the configuration of the PLC modems, and the control technique is outlined. Lastly, we discuss the effectiveness of the approach in the smart micro grid scenario.