Development of Real-time Control of Commercial Off-The-Shelf Inverter/Charger for Energy Management of Microgrids

Microgrids are generally comprised of a number of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) which may be renewable or non-renewable sources. Due to the intermittent nature of wind and solar resources, batteries are commonly used to ensure power quality and reliability. A central Energy Management System (EMS) is necessary to coordinate operation for the most economical utilization of all microgrid resources. This paper presents the control of a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) battery inverter/charger and battery SOC monitoring using CAN protocol. The CAN protocols are dispatched by an OPAL-RT real-time digital simulator. The proposed approach is well suited for commercial microgrids as well as testbeds, leading to a reduced cost of the overall system, by using a COTS inverter instead of costly custom equipment. The results shows the speed of response of commands sent to the inverter/charger as well as the controllability.