A Scalable Framework for Real-Time Validation of Large-Scale Smart Grid Applications: Toward End-to-End Automation of Cyber-Physical Testbeds

In this paper we propose an approach for automatically building real-time emulations of large scale cyber-physical energy systems. An end-to-end methodology is presented, starting from the system description, continuing with automatic model and interface generation, and finally completing with deployment and real-time execution. The intended target use of the proposed solution is the validation of massively distributed smart-grid software applications. The goal is to provide an automated testing framework that can be integrated in modern software development tool-chains. In this manner, complex software ecosystems that act on critical infrastructure can be exhaustively evaluated and validated before being deployed in the field. A prototypical implementation is also presented. This relies on a commercially available real-time simulator whose digital interfacing capabilities were extended in order to meet our automation requirements. As a showcase we consider the problem of generator dispatch using a distributed optimal power flow algorithm. For this example application we consider two test scenarios: one consisting of a smaller network where 13 software agents are deployed, and a larger one involving 123 software agents. Using the proposed framework, scaling the test setup is automated, considerably reducing the required time and errors that typically appear during this process.