Supporting the development of smart grid solutions and concepts, ERIGrid in particular addresses the lack of system validation approaches for smart grids. Aiming for a holistic, cyber-physical systems based approach, the ERIGrid consortium designed a method to enhance the necessary research services for analysing, validating and testing smart grid configurations.
Smart energy solutions aim to modify and optimise the operation of existing energy infrastructure. Such cyber-physical technology must be mature before deployment to the actual infrastructure, and competitive solutions will have to be compliant to standards still under development. Achieving this technology readiness and harmonisation requires validation against software/hardware testbeds, reproducible experiments and appropriately realistic testing environments. Such testbeds for multi-domain cyber-physical experiments are based on immovable or costly equipment and are complex in and of themselves.
The new Holistic Test Description (HTD) method developed by ERIGrid facilitates the conception, deconstruction and reproduction of complex experimental designs in the domains of cyber-physical energy systems. With the ERIGrid method, research laboratories can combine their unique qualities to devise meaningful system tests. The approach applies to all scales of experiments, combinations of physical and simulated testbeds, and many engineering disciplines.
The new empirical work titled “ERIGrid Holistic Test Description for Validating Cyber-Physical Energy Systems” in the Energies journal describes the ERIGrid method for the scoping and design of experiments where both testbed and solution each require detailed expertise. This work first revisited present test description approaches, developed a new description method for cyber-physical energy systems testing, and matured it by means of user involvement. The publication also elaborates on the background and motivation, offers a guideline and examples to the proposed approach, and summarises experience from three years of its application in ERIGrid.
All Templates and Guidelines relating to the ERIGrid HTD method are available in ERIGrid GitHub repository on an open access basis.
On 21 October 2019 ERIGrid held a webinar on the holistic validation approach and the corresponding test description.
This webinar focused on the following topics:
• overview of holistic testing description method
• highlights from three years’ experience with the holistic testing approach
• detailed example of the holistic testing approach in a multi-domain test case realised in a multi-laboratory testbed within the ERIGrid project.
You can find all slides from the webinar presentations here.
Photo: SYSLAB, DTU