DC Microgrid Design and Controller Testing Using PLECS and the RT Box (ICDCM 2021)

In this video Plexim's Lino Capponi walks through a PLECS model that simulates a bipolar low-voltage DC microgrid both offline and in real-time using the RT Box HIL simulator family and TI C2000 MCUs . The microgrid is composed of two 20 kW Battery Storage Systems (BSS), each consisting of two dual active bridges and acting as a grid-supporting converter on the microgrid via droop control, a 20kW NPC-based Grid Interface Converter (GIC) between the common DC power link and the low-voltage utility AC grid, a motor drive constant power load (CPL), and PV generation. The real-time simulation setup includes an RT Box 1 interconnected to an RT Box 3, where its multiple cores are utilized, to fully model the subcomponents making up the DC microgrid. Further, three MCUs are deployed under test, one serving as the controller for each of the two BSS, and a third programmed as the GIC controller.