Towards a scalable and flexible smart grid co-simulation environment to investigate communication infrastructures for resilient distribution grid operation

Various changes in the power system are leading to an increased integration of information and communications technology at the distribution grid level. This offers broader opportunities for active operational management concepts. Concurrently, there are growing demands on the resilience of smart distribution grid infrastructures against internal and external disturbances such as failures or cyberattacks, in order to maintain the security of power supply. In this paper, a co-simulation framework for the investigation of communication infrastructures for resilient operation of distribution grids is presented. For this, a communication network emulation and a power flow solver are combined in a joint modular environment. This creates the foundation for investigations regarding cybersecurity, resilience analysis, and testing of new active operational management concepts for smart distribution grids.