Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Based on Internet of Things: An Energy Community Digital Twin Case Study

Electrical power systems are shifting to be more intelligent, creating smart grids that employ a widespread bi-directional communication system for monitoring the grid status and improving grid assets management. This chapter presents a case study for energy community data monitoring, which aims to provide real-time data monitoring using internet of things based hardware-in-the-loop approach. The information is received from several internet of things devices connected to the different loads within the energy community. The acquired data will be transferred in real-time into the energy community digital model; therefore, it will be able to provide real-time data monitoring of different metric quantities of the community thus enhancing the energy operations management. The case study presented in this paper demonstrates the potential of internet of thing and hardware-in-the-loop techniques for real-time data monitoring and the study of several operation scenarios under real-world conditions. The data monitoring is performed for two hours duration, also, a demand response event is implemented to enhance the voltage profile of the community.