Developing a digital twin for a microgrid using LabVIEW

Abstract

A power grid typically experiences several incidents or disruptions annually, caused mainly by human factors and errors that pose a serious risk to humans and equipment in the system. The Digital Twin (DT) is a digital representation of a system that monitors, simulates and controls the system virtually in real-time. It has been gaining popularity in recent years. To eliminate the risks, a DT of the Clean Energy Research Laboratory (CERL) microgrid testbed has been developed with the capability to perform Power Flow Analysis (PFA) and the flexibility of changing loads/sources. The DT also includes renewable energy models like solar and wind power. The DT utilises LabVIEW as the main software with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for user interaction. This report details the development process of the DT and provides a user guide to a small-scale microgrid system. The DT serves as a guide for power system engineers to virtually simulate the physical system from the control room.