An EMS Research and Development Fast Prototyping Platform for Disaster Relief

Power restoration after disasters is of utmost importance, due to its critical role in supporting disaster relief, medical care, transportation, communications and other essential services in disaster areas. However, post-disaster power restoration is a time-sensitive energy management problem, and it will be a challenge for conventional methods to ensure power restoration in a rapid and stable period of time for areas with limited resources and complex environmental conditions. This paper presents an energy management system (EMS) research and development (R&D) fast prototyping platform designed for disaster relief. Designed for microgrids in disaster areas, the platform enables rapid deployment of microgrid prototype and offers energy management capabilities to supply emergency power. The platform integrates both software and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) system to form a closed-loop R&D process. The software part has a modular design of EMS components and functions, allowing for flexible combinations and convenient user configuration based on various application needs. The HIL system part provides a dedicated testing and verification solution for EMS modules through the networking of multiple devices. To verify the fast prototyping capability of the platform, simulation validation is conducted using several microgrid cases with dynamically changing environments and user requirements in the disaster scenario. The results indicate that these design features enable the platform to conveniently configure microgrid rapid prototypes for case analysis and proof-of-concept validation in a modular manner, making it well-suited for EMS applications in time-sensitive and dynamic disaster scenarios.