RT23 |HIL validation of isolated DC-DC converter in a MVDC network

SuperGrid Institute is an innovation and research company, expert, among others, in the development of HVDC and MVDC technologies. Since 2016, SuperGrid Institute has been working with Opal-RT to create and improve a Hardware In the Loop (HIL) platform that supports research and allows testing newly developed technologies. Currently, SuperGrid Institute is developing an innovative DC-DC converter which will be implemented in a demonstrator of a PV power plant based on MVDC collection network. This MVDC network (+/- 5 kV) is powered by solar panels arranged linearly over approx. 1 km and will reach 750 kW. It is composed of 3 DC stations spaced approx. 300 meters. Within each one of them there is a 250 kW isolated step-up DC-DC converter and six Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) boost converters. The converter control and global DC station control are specially developed for this project. To validate the controls, a HIL test bench is developed at SuperGrid Institute with: - A detailed model of one complete DC station (MPPT and isolated DC-DC), running on FPGA (sample time: 110 ns) thanks to eHs gen5. - Averaged models of solar panels and network components: DC-AC converter, 2 other DC stations and cables, running on CPU (sample time: 50 us) thanks to Hypersim. At RT23, the HIL test bench and Software In the Loop results (start-up, nominal operating state, shutdown) will be presented and some perspectives of the project, including the ambition to build a digital twin to the MVDC network will be given.