Grid Emulator for Compliance Testing of Wave Energy Converters

Wave energy, being a nascent source of power generation, has lacked the infrastructure and testing facilities necessary for its streamlined development. The variability in the generated power demands certification of Wave Energy Converters (WEC) and smoothing of the power before connection to a power grid. This paper presents the development of a grid emulator by the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC) to test the grid compatibility of WECs, enabling developers to test their device performance before moving forward to full grid connection. The grid emulator would enable testing of WECs under different grid disturbances as well as provide isolation between the WECs and the grid during initial testing. Also detailed are the initial specifications of the full scale grid emulator, its proposed location, and functionality. This paper presents the plan and preliminary setup for an in-lab hardware-in-the-loop testing of the grid emulator. The topology of the converter has been detailed, initial simulation results have been shared and plans for further simulations have been illustrated.