A Novel Mechanical Hardware in the Loop Platform for Distributed Generation Systems

The present paper proposes a mechanical hardware in the loop approach applied to a renewable energy generating system, where the whole drive (control, power electronics and electric machine) is tested and the mechanical part is simulated in real time environment. The problem of emulating the inertial torque, which can have a significant high value, is solved in the paper through an original approach in order to relax the high dynamic requirements of the electrical drive that emulates the mechanical part. The hardware in the loop test bench has been design to emulate two energy sources (hydro and wind) and a control strategy able to emulate inertial torque has been implemented An experimental phase in which the different energy sources are modeled and emulated in a real time environment is presented.