Co-Simulation of a Cellular Energy System

The concept of cellular energy systems of the German Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) proposes sector coupled energy networks for energy transition based on cellular structures. Its decentralized control approach radically differs from that of existing networks. Deeply integrated information and communications technologies (ICT) open opportunities for increased resilience and optimizations. The exploration of this concept requires a comprehensive simulation tool. In this paper, we investigate simulation techniques for cellular energy systems and present a concept based on co-simulation. We combine simulation tools developed for different domains. A classical tool for studying physical aspects of energy systems (Modelica, TransiEnt library) is fused with a state-of-the-art communication networks simulator (OMNeT++) via the standardized functional mock-up interface (FMI). New components, such as cell managers, aggregators, and markets, are integrated via remote procedure calls. A special feature of our concept is that the communication simulator coordinates the co-simulation as a master and integrates other components via a proxy concept. Model consistency across different domains is achieved by a common description of the energy system. Evaluation proves the feasibility of the concept and shows simulation speeds about 20 times faster than real time for a cell with 111 households.