Grid-ViDS: A Smart Grid Co-Simulation Platform for Virtual Device Simulation

In this work, we present a generic co-simulation platform that allows researchers to evaluate and test the effects of communication networks within distribution systems to support analyzing cyber-resilience. The developed set of tools seeks to simplify the exchange of electrical data with external controllers/systems while at the same time offering the ability to evaluate the effects of different communication network architectures and/or events. The proposed solution is built around OpenDSS and Mininet using a python-based wrapper, potentially enabling the integration of third-party libraries with ease. To demonstrate this concept, the paper presents a Modbus-based DER control platform that has been coupled to the IEEE 13 bus system; a cyber-physical system that could be used to assess the cyber-resilience of different volt-var control strategies. Our paper specifically focuses on highlighting the effort-saving features that could be of interest to researchers and developers, potentially reducing the number of resources needed to build such systems from scratch. Finally, this paper represents the first public release of our tool.