Integrated electrical and thermal grid facility - testing of future microgrid technologies

This paper describes the Experimental Power Grid Centre (EPGC) microgrid test facility, which was developed to enable research, development and testing for a wide range of distributed generation and microgrid technologies. The EPGC microgrid facility comprises a integrated electrical and thermal grid with a flexible and configurable architecture, and includes various distributed energy resources and emulators, such as generators, renewable, energy storage technologies and programmable load banks. The integrated thermal grid provides an opportunity to harness waste heat produced by the generators for combined heat, power and cooling applications, and support research in optimization of combined electrical-thermal systems. Several case studies are presented to demonstrate the testing of different control and operation strategies for storage systems in grid-connected and islanded microgrids. One of the case studies also demonstrates an integrated thermal grid to convert waste heat to useful energy, which thus far resulted in a higher combined energy efficiency. Experiment results confirm that the facility enables testing and evaluation of grid technologies and practical problems that may not be apparent in a computer simulated environment.