Regionally-specific scenarios for smart grid simulations

In order to manage the increasing number of distributed energy resources, control strategies must be developed for a better integration of those units in the system and energy markets. Within the development of control strategies and algorithms for Smart Grids, simulation is of major importance, as for financial and safety reasons tests in the field can be performed only very late in the development process. In order to obtain results not only for dedicated research questions in defined simulation settings but also to allow a claim of generality, the evaluation of control strategies has to rely on a sound experimental design. Appropriate Smart Grid simulation scenarios, defining the power grid including all energy resources and loads down to the grid connection node, are part of such an experimental design. This paper presents a generalized process model to obtain regionally-specific Smart-Grid scenarios, illustrating the process with two exemplary research projects.