Coupling of Real-Time and Co-Simulation for the Evaluation of the Large Scale Integration of Electric Vehicles into Intelligent Power Systems

TL;DR

This paper presents a co-simulation approach combining real-time and software simulations to validate electric vehicle supply equipment, facilitating testing and supporting increased electric vehicle integration into power systems.

Contribution

It introduces LabLink, an embedded software interface enabling seamless connection of software and real-time simulations for EV supply equipment testing.

Findings

Successful implementation of co-simulation platform

Validation of the testing platform's usability

Support for higher electric vehicle penetration

Abstract

This paper addresses the validation of electric vehicle supply equipment by means of a real-time capable co-simulation approach. This setup implies both pure software and real-time simulation tasks with different sampling rates dependent on the type of the performed experiment. In contrast, controller and power hardware-in-the-loop simulations are methodologies which ask for real-time execution of simulation models with well-defined simulation sampling rates. Software and real-time methods are connected one to each other using an embedded software interface. It is able to process signals with different time step sizes and is called "LabLink". Its design implies both common and specific input and output layers (middle layer), as well as a data bus (core). The LabLink enables the application of the co-simulation methodology on the proposed experimental platform targeting the testing of electric vehicle supply equipment. The test setup architecture and representative examples for the implemented co-simulation are presented in this paper. As such, a validation of the usability of this testing platform can be highlighted aiming to support a higher penetration of electric vehicles.