This chapter deals with real-time applications of digital devices aimed at voltage control of transmission and distribution systems. The focus is on the implementation of the aforementioned devices as digital control systems using microprocessors and general-purpose computing systems, fitted out with operating systems for general use but with real-time characteristics. With this aim, high level simulation tools designed to model the plant process, and automatically generate a control code appear to be a promising approach to quickly prototype control systems. This chapter discusses in details the application and simulation results of such real-time operating systems (RTOSs) and hardware (HW)-software (SW) platforms for voltage control applications in some real-world distribution networks with inclusion of distributed generation.

Chapter Contents:

• 7.1 Introduction
• 7.2 Outlines of real-time system concepts
• 7.2.1 Real-time operating systems
• 7.2.2 Real-time communications
• 7.3 Voltage control
• 7.3.1 Excitation control systems
• 7.3.1.1 Redundancy
• 7.3.2 Secondary voltage control
• 7.3.2.1 SART: automatic system for voltage control
• 7.3.2.2 Experimental results
• 7.3.3 Voltage control with distributed generation
• 7.3.3.1 Voltage rise mitigation in distribution networks
• 7.3.3.2 Reactive power control in distribution networks
• 7.4 Conclusions
• Bibliography

Inspec keywords: distributed power generation; digital control; distribution networks; voltage control

Other keywords: digital device; electric power generation; real-time application; RTOS; distributed generation; real-world distribution network; voltage control; distribution system; real-time operating system; general-purpose computing system; hardware-software platform; microprocessor; digital control system

Subjects: Distribution networks; Distributed power generation; Discrete control systems; Voltage control; Control of electric power systems