Electromechanical emulation of hydrokinetic generators for renewable energy research

The pace of research and development efforts to integrate renewable power sources into modern electric utilities continues to increase. These efforts are motivated by a desire for cleaner, cheaper and more diverse sources of energy. As new analyses and controls approaches are developed to manage renewable sources and tie them into the grid, the need for these controls to be tested in hardware becomes paramount. In particular, hydrokinetic power is appealing due to its high energy density and superior forecastability; however, its development has lagged behind that of wind and solar due in part to the difficulty of acquiring hardware results on an integrated system. Thus, as an alternative to constructing an elaborate wave-tank or locating a power lab riverside, this paper presents a method based on electromechanical emulation of the energy source using a commercially available induction motor drive. Using an electromechanical emulator provides an option for universities and other laboratories to expand their research on hydrokinetics in a typical laboratory setting.