Customizing Controls for DER Interconnection Analysis Using Open Source Simulation Tools

Nowadays, planning studies for distribution power systems require the inclusion of non-conventional loads. These loads refer to devices that converts energy integrating multiple functionalities not included in traditional simulation tools. These technologies are continuously changing and adding new functionalities that need to be tested before being implemented by utilities. However, most available simulation tools cannot respond to the rate of these changes because of either inadequate information on the power system equipment, several release of various versions of power system equipment, and some of these newly developed power system equipment/devices are too specialized; hence difficult to interface with the existing power system, among other issues. This paper presents a methodology for modeling new power system equipment technologies using Open Source Simulation Tools. The simulation tool proposed in this paper is EPRI Open Source Distribution System Simulator OpenDSS. By using OpenDSS, we discuss the implementation of a new energy storage device, which has smart inverter capabilities, and how to model it for a fast implementation in detailed daily simulations. The proposed methodology is a simple co-simulation technique to incorporate recent technologies on an existing distribution system; within existing simulation packages.