The equipment consists in a smart microgrid with multiple and hybrid energy sources, storages and loads, including electric vehicles charging stations and hydrogen, completely controlled and monitored by a supervisory control and data acquisition platform (SCADA).
The equipment consists of functional modules compacted into a portable, wheeled container.
All the modules communicate by an open protocol to the main control for management, analysis and diagnostic.
The completely open and flexible structure makes this platform ideal for the conception, simulation and experimental development of innovative systems in the field of microgrids and hybrid energy systems.
It consists in a "Hybrid Energy Hub" (HEH) with power bank functions comprising different energy storage subsystems like batteries, a hydrogen fuel cell, and a ultracapacitor bank, supplied by the grid and by a photovoltaic subsystem. HEH supplies a double fast electric vehicle charging station and the other loads of the Campus. HEH architecture is based on an innovative DC link equipped with DC/DC converters and a bidirectional DC/AC inverter.
The architecture based on a DC link is innovative and its integration with the hydrogen system makes the grid unique at national level and one of the few at European level.
The objective of the microgrid is to make the tools and competences of the research group available to companies and research centers operating in the smartgrid and renewable energy sources by experimental and multidisciplinary research activities. The open protocol remote control system allows its operation, management and monitoring in remote from different research groups in a multidisciplinary way and in a remote way.
The goal is to implement controls, management, optimization and diagnostics algorithms by using machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches, object of several research activities developed by the Departments participants, testified by the works already published and in press, listed as reference of the projects.