Cyber-Physical Electrical Power and Energy System Laboratory for Enabling Modern Power Systems

The intensive penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) poses a number of technical challenges that need to be properly addressed in order to guarantee the operation of the modern power system. With this regard, the development of new control functionalities in converter-interfaced generation to provide ancillary services is a key issue to ensure high system reliability. However, the integration of these services in field requires prior experimental validation to faithfully reproduce the behaviour of this new grid. This paper presents a comprehensive cyber-physical electrical power and energy system laboratory that integrates all elements of a modern power system, from devices to controllers, moving a step forward from power hardware in the loop. The proposed platform implements a scaled-down version of the European medium voltage distribution network proposed by CIGRE for high RES penetration. The platform performance is evaluated by testing five fundamental ancillary services: voltage control, inertial response, primary frequency control, power smoothing and harmonic compensation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed infrastructure for testing advanced control strategies in modern power systems, bridging the gap between simulation studies and full-scale implementation.