Power system operation is of vital importance and must be developed far beyond today’s practice to meet future needs. Almost all European countries are facing an abrupt and very important increase of renewables with intrinsically varying yields which are difficult to predict. In addition, an increase of new types of electric loads and a reduction of traditional production from bulk generation can be observed as well. Hence, the level of complexity of system operation steadily increases. Because of these developments, the traditional power system is being transformed into a smart grid. Previous and ongoing research has tended to focus on how specific aspects of smart grids can be developed and validated, but until now there exists no integrated approach for analysing and evaluating complex smart grid configurations. To tackle these research and development needs, a pan-European research infrastructure is realized in the ERIGrid project that supports the technology development as well as the roll-out of smart grid technologies and solutions. This paper provides an overview of the main results of ERIGrid which have been achieved during the last four years. Also, experiences and lessons learned are discussed and an outlook to future research needs is provided.

@en

Work package JRA2 focuses on the development of advanced simulation-based methods to checkand validate smart grid scenarios, configurations and corresponding applications. The main aim isto employ offline simulation of scenarios where a combination of parallel processing, advanced optimization techniques, and design-of-experiments is used to master the system complexity. Secondary targets include the development of methods for HIL application as well as for the assessment of cyber-security concepts. This assessment will cover the following smart grid properties:system stability, system scalability, component interoperability, and information security. Eventuallyit is the goal to explore the operational limits and the sensitivity of these system properties towardssystem parameters.@en

Renewables are key enablers in the plight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cope with anthropogenic global warming. The intermittent nature and limited storage capabilities of renewables culminate in new challenges that power system operators have to deal with in order to regulate power quality and ensure security of supply. At the same time, the increased availability of advanced automation and communication technologies provides new opportunities for the derivation of intelligent solutions to tackle the challenges. Previous work has shown various new methods of operating highly interconnected power grids, and their corresponding components, in a more effective way. As a consequence of these developments, the traditional power system is being transformed into a cyber-physical energy system, a smart grid. Previous and ongoing research have tended to mainly focus on how specific aspects of smart grids can be validated, but until there exists no integrated approach for the analysis and evaluation of complex cyber-physical systems configurations. This paper introduces integrated research infrastructure that provides methods and tools for validating smart grid systems in a holistic, cyber-physical manner. The corresponding concepts are currently being developed further in the European project ERIGrid.

@en