Computer Architecture and Multi Time-Scale Implementations for Smart Grid in a Room Simulator

This paper describes how to utilize physics-based unified modeling of complex electric power systems in order to design a multi-layered interactive Smart Grid in a Room Simulator (SGRS). In this simulator, the dynamic response of a given interconnected grid is simulated and assessed as a family of interfaced sub-processes jointly evolving at different time-scales. Compared to state-of-the-art simulators, advantages of the SGRS are that it is scalable to large systems since it uses distributed computing and that it allows for privacy of different components since one object does not need to know the models or methods of another object. Standardized and transportable objects representing physical components at various degrees of temporal, spatial, and functional granularity are constructed by different users and added to the SGRS platform for future use by all. This allows users to simulate and assess the effect of the technology of interest to them, which makes the SGRS effective in supporting the deployment of new technologies with well-understood effects. Examples on the SRGS are described for simulating market-driven sub-processes and the fast dynamics sub-processes in response to market actions and/or to sudden hard-to-predict disturbances.