opENS: an Open Source Connected Inverter for Smart Grid Experimental Validations

Power grids are undergoing the connection of a large number of new, flexible players, often involving power electronics equipment. These new players are creating disruptions that were only partially anticipated. This reaffirms the need for experimental validation, an intermediary stage between simulation and real-life deployment. Current laboratory infrastructures are often limited to testing a limited number of physical assets, which cannot reproduce the interactions taking place in reality. The opENS project therefore proposes to emulate power flows using controlled, communicating inverters, which are programmed to replicate the behavior of any actor: power plant, consumer, storage, etc. They are designed to be easily built in large quantities and subjected to fault testing. They are controlled by a communication and supervision platform that monitors the experiment and collects its data. This project is open source for its hardware architecture and open data for both the developments made and the data generated.