OpenEMS in Off-Grid & Minigrid Applications

English Forum
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Hi openEMS Community,

just to give some context:
As part of the IEA PVPS Task 18, a group of companies from the minigrid/off-grid sector is currently exploring the potential of using OpenEMS more broadly in off-grid applications.
To validate this, they’re working with the existing OpenEMS simulation environment.

Now to my actual question:
In real-world operation, PV generation is continuously curtailed by the grid-forming unit (the minigrid controller) to ensure grid stability. This control happens independently and in parallel to OpenEMS.
We’d now like to replicate this kind of PV curtailment within the OpenEMS simulation environment.

So here’s the question:
Would it be possible, for example, to use the controller “48. PV-Inverter Fix Power Limit” with a virtual PV inverter that is fed by CSV data?
Has anyone done something similar or has a good suggestion?

I haven´t found much on this topic in the forum, so I hope I did not missed a already existing thread on this topic.

Thanks a lot in advance and best regards,
Johannes

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Hi Johannes,

and thanks for getting in touch! When searching for “IEA PVPS Task 18” I found this: Off-Grid and Edge-of-Grid Photovoltaic Systems - IEA-PVPS. Is this what you are working on? It sounds like an interesting initiative and I’ll surely do my best to support it.

In real-world operation, PV generation is continuously curtailed by the grid-forming unit (the minigrid controller) to ensure grid stability. This control happens independently and in parallel to OpenEMS.

I do not have much experience with off-grid applications, but this sounds very much like the behaviour for a battery-inverter that is configured to not feed-to-grid. It’s a configuration we see often used with FENECON Home systems.

A storage system will in that case charge from PV till its full and then reduce or shutdown the PV.

To simulate this in OpenEMS, you woud require a little bit of programming for a Simulator.ProductionMeter.Reacting. Similarly to the existing Simulator.GridMeter.Reacting this meter would calculate the production from ESS and (simulated) Consumption.

Regards,
Stefan