Automatic Generation of Charging Point's Digital Twin for Virtual Commissioning of Their Automation Systems

Abstract

The wide propagation of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure integrated into the energy distribution network poses numerous challenges for the engineering and control of the latter: the load dynamic characteristics become more unsteady, requiring more advanced control, predictions, and virtual commissioning. One step toward the automation of the design and simulation of new charging stations can be reached through the integration of the EV-specific standards and protocols with other widely spread electrical standards and, thereby, improving the compatibility between standards, increasing the reuse of the intelligent work results, and promoting the development of EVs’ infrastructure. A method for virtual commissioning of electrical charging stations is proposed, implemented, and tested in a form of a software tool in which the electrical system description from the widely used IEC 61850 standard is used as an input. The designed tool builds a digital twin of the charging station that consists of its Simulink model as well as two automatically generated communication code primitives using the open charge point protocol for control and management purposes over the autogenerated model. The generated digital twin can be used for virtual commissioning purposes. The application of the method is illustrated in a case study.