OPAL-RT TECHNOLOGIES and Triphase will showcase their technological partnership @ Vermogenselektronica event

As partners, OPAL-RT and Triphase combined their strengths to provide Power Hardware-In-the-Loop (PHIL) solutions to customers. PHIL simulation is a scenario where a simulation environment exchanges power with real hardware, in contrast to the usual case in HIL simulation, which involves only signal exchange.

PHIL is required to test power converters, generators, FACTS, and so on. However, to completely fool the real equipment, it must be interfaced and connected to the simulator using voltage and power amplifiers that can generate and absorb real power since the simulator works with low level of voltage and current.

Triphase provides solutions for the rapid development of complex, high-performance, industrial power-electronic systems including electric vehicles and power grid control. Triphase amplifiers provide a means to integrate high-power equipment with OPAL-RT real-time simulators in a closed loop. The two companies have been working on a unique integration process of their product lines to address the needs of today’s power engineers.

Power engineers world-wide are taking on the challenge to reduce our carbon footprint. In doing so, they work on ever more efficient and complex electric power systems in application areas such as electric vehicles, more electric aircrafts and ships, office and datacenter DC networks and microgrids powered by renewable sources. In order to accelerate their pace of innovation, engineers need the means to experiment with ideas and validate designs in simulation.

However, there is a strong need in the market to conduct tests on real power equipment in the lab before integrating it in a critical system such as an airplane or power grid. “Obviously, you can’t change an aircraft when it’s in the air” says Pieter Coppens, Sales & Marketing Manager at Triphase. Triphase and OPAL-RT’s integrated solution allows power engineers to readily switch between virtual and power-hardware-in-the-loop simulations of multi-node power systems. Simulators, amplifiers and measurements communicate via a high-speed, real-time digital network. As such, simulators have full control over the configuration and real-time operation of all amplifiers and measurements connected to the network. Triphase switched-mode amplifiers offer power outputs ranging from a few kW to several hundreds of kW and a high operating efficiency.