Laboratory education on distributed energy resources making use of an advanced infrastructure

Laboratory education is an important part of the engineering curriculum as it provides a bridge between theory and the operation of the real power system. This paper reports on hardware laboratory exercises designed and performed at the advanced laboratory infrastructure of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), which consists of Low Voltage microgrids incorporating various Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and hardware connections to virtual systems (Real-time Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation). The capability of Distributed Generation to provide ancillary services at distribution networks and support the voltage is explained theoretically and through laboratory experiments. Moreover, the contribution of power-electronic interfaced DER to faults is measured/tested in a Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) environment, which allows the use of physical DER, whereas the faults are performed safely in simulation. The islanded and grid-connected operation of a microgrid is presented where the students have the opportunity to see how power-electronic interfaced DER can operate as conventional synchronous generators based on droop control.