A Testing Framework for the Monitoring and Performance Analysis of Distributed Energy Systems

The increasing presence of intermittent distributed generation (DG) based on renewable energy sources (RESs) is heavily affecting the operation and management of modern distribution grids. Even though the use of distributed energy storage systems (DESSs) and the integration of advanced demand response (DR) programs are expected to mitigate this problem, security, safety, economic, and technical reasons are limiting the tests of these mechanisms in working systems. The test in simulation and emulation environments has proved to be an effective solution for the development of advanced control and protection schema, but their use for the simulation of the typically unpredictable behavior of end-users seems at least questionable. This paper proposes a testing framework for the analysis of experimental control strategies of distributed energy systems. The framework, based on a service-oriented architecture, can be easily interconnected to different systems, including renewable generators and storage systems. This framework can be used to analyze the performance of real energy systems, working in near-to-real conditions. The framework has been used for a pilot test on a subset of the facilities of the eLUX laboratory of the University of Brescia. The proposed framework allows analyzing the energy performance of this system by means of proper key performance indicators (KPIs). The efficiency analysis of a battery energy storage system (BESS) is presented, by proposing KPIs to evaluate the effect of different control strategies. Further KPIs are also used to evaluate the effectiveness of the BESS for improving the energy self-consumption of a photovoltaic system.