DC Microgrid Experimental Platforms
Microgrid control methods are only convincing once they run on real converters, batteries and loads. Low-voltage DC microgrid testbeds were built at Aston and Loughborough to test converter control, energy storage and system operation together, and a larger 50 kW test bench was operated during a research secondment at Zhejiang University.
Aston University: Modular DC Microgrid Testbed
A laboratory microgrid in which four 250 W interface converters connect a PV emulator, two battery banks and a grid emulator to a common DC bus. It carried the PhD experiments.
Loughborough University: Low-Voltage DC Microgrid
A modular test bench developed through successive interface-converter prototypes, reaching 500 W per converter in its second version.
Read about the Loughborough testbed
Zhejiang University: 50 kW DC Microgrid Test Bench
A two-month secondment in 2018 covered the operation of a 50 kW DC microgrid test bench: its converter protection, its hierarchical control with passivity-based stabilisation, and the control of its three-phase AC–DC interface converters.