Features

The purpose of EMO-L is to interact with the DER interconnected to the Microgrid installation to achieve various goals depending on the electrical conditions and the DER operating modes. It includes:

Generators (Gas Turbine Generators, Steam Turbines Generators, Diesel Generators, CHP)
Battery Energy Storage System
PV inverters

In order to achieve this purpose, the primary responsibilities of EMO-L are:

Acquisition of necessary DER data such as healthiness status, running status, operating mode, frequency and voltage measures, active and reactive powers measures.
Regulation of the frequency and the voltage on each island (electrical sub-network) to maintain them within their respective predefined acceptable ranges. This regulation is essential to keep the electrical and electromechanical machines, as well as protection IED, in their nominal electrical conditions of running.
Regulation of the exchanged power within the Microgrid and with the main distributor grid. This regulation is essential to ensure the stability of the electrical power distribution, balancing the loads and the power sources, avoiding blackout, regulating the power shared with the grid generally to limit the imported or exported power for contractual or economic reasons, and/or to target a predefined power factor following the local grid code requirements, protect the assets within the Microgrid installation.
When a genset is used among the DER, two strategies may be applied. The first one called Fuel eraser strives to limit the usage of the genset energy consumption. The second one, called fuel saver, tries to limit the genset running at its minimal power rate (setting of the control) when it is used.
Steering the voltage sources to provide to the Microgrid a voltage reference (grid or other voltage source) . This steering may require transitions between the voltage operating modes.
Manages the transitions between the operating modes. Transitions from grid - connected mode to islanded mode and reverse, or between grid forming sources in islanded mode, involve significant transients in the electrical distribution system which are managed to provide more reliable power supply and continuity.

To achieve these duties, four main functions are implemented within EMO automation, which are executed cyclically or alternatively, depending on the use case and scenario expected by the customer. The four main functions are:

Operating mode management
Electrical topology management
DER management
Load management

The EMO automation, the automation component of EMO-L, is a software component standing on ISaGRAF workbench. EMO-L can be adapted to fulfill the customer’s requirements, the needs of the application, according to the DER and loads embedded features or characteristics using its programming capabilities. If this kind of adaptation requires an amount of workload, EMO-L offers a set of pre-defined functions which are used to the customer’s use case by configuration task.