The development of a smart grid co-simulation platform and case study on Vehicle-to-Grid voltage support application

A reliable and adequate communication network is crucial for smart grid applications. It is important to evaluate the performance of network infrastructure with respect to the diverse requirements imposed by various smart grid applications to ensure system reliability. Due to the complex dynamics involving communication and electrical systems, analytical study on smart grid faces challenges. As a result, comprehensive simulation platforms are needed for the study of interdependency between the heterogeneous systems. In this paper, we discuss the design of our smart grid co-simulation platform which combines power system simulator PSCAD/EMTDC with network simulator OPNET. In addition, we report a case study on Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) voltage support application with respect to WiMAX / WiFi vehicle-to-infrastructure scenarios.