Using Matlab and Modbus TCP/IP connection for real-time monitoring of a demonstration microgrid

• Autor(a) principal: Casteleyn, Louis
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Relatório
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/9308
• topic: Matlab; Janitza Power; Analyzers; MODBUS TCP/IP; Powerflow simulation; Energy Monitoring; Real-Time Simulation

In cooperation with the research facility GECAD (Research Group on Intelligent Engineering and Computing for Advanced Innovation and Development (http://www.gecad.isep.ipp.pt/GECAD/ Pages/Presentation/Home.aspx)) located next to ISEP (Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto), a project was made to retrieve electrical data from the research lab at the facility. This lab is able to simulate small electrical grids (also called micro-grids). Since electrical energy monitoring has become more important due to environmental and economical causes in the last decades, this has become an interesting subject for studies. Not only quantity, but nowadays also quality (power quality) becomes more important for consumers as well as producers. A good monitoring system is needed in order reach these goals. However, in this paper, only a little part of monitoring will be discussed: the actual retrieving of the data. Complete monitoring holds more content as explained further in the paper. The main goal is to establish a MODBUS TCP/IP connection between Matlab and 9 Janitza Power Analyzers (UMG96RM-EL) located in the main distribution board of the lab. The retrieved data can be visualised in Matlab or can be exported to Excel for further analysis or manipulation. Also a real-time solution will be provided in the end. In this way the user is able to analyze the different power flows trough the buses connected with the loads making it possible to measure exact energy consumption and losses when simulating a costum-made grid. 2 different approaches were used in Matlab and subjected to speedtests under the same circumstances. Next to speed, another important factor is simplicity and flexibility for future adjustments by others that are not the authors of the code. For this reason regular comments where implemented to facilitate comprehensive reading. This project was made as an alternative version to a similar project that uses Simulink to get the same results as stated above. In the last chapter, a case-study is done to verify the correct working of the program and to visualize the results of the simulation. As a student in electrical engineering, programming is not a big part of the curriculum. Since the project mainly consists of coding, a few weeks where needed in the beginning to understand the Matlab environment. Once this was done, the actual code was written in the following months. The final step was the case study. The results of this were achieved in the final week of the project. The total amount of time spent on the project is 4 months.