Design of a Smart Microgrid Laboratory Platform for University Campus

The smart microgrid platform project has been initiated to integrate a renewable energy laboratory on the campus with real-time data monitoring capacity. This expected smart micro grid will complement the construction process of the campus, as it is planned to be deployed in stages. The overall design of this microgrid laboratory platform is based on the methodologies of system design development processes, where the design goes through different stages such as the informational design stage, the conceptual design stage, the preliminary design stage and finally the detail design stage. All these mentioned stages have their own steps to be followed to get to the desired design of the smart microgrid laboratory system. From the literature research is concluded that there has not yet been made an attempt to design an electrical energy system with the design methods of product or system development process. These design methodologies are actually developed for the design of mechanical and mechatronic systems. The mechatronics are defined at R&D (research and development) level as complex systems which can be organized into ten technical areas: Motion Control, Robotics, Automotive Systems, Intelligent Control, Actuators and Sensors, Modeling and Design, System Integration, Manufacturing, Micro Devices and Optoelectronics, and Vibration and Noise control. Nowadays the application area of mechatronics is remarkably broad. This technology is firmly used in the automation of machines, biomedical systems, energy and power systems, vehicular systems, data communication systems and computer aided design. Since smart microgrids are also complex systems with various integrated elements, the approach of a modified design method of a modular system design was utilized for this laboratory platform. In this context the paper aims to present the initial stages of a modular system design for the smart microgrid lab platform, where the target technical specifications of the smart microgrid system are the key characteristics for the deployment of the modular design as required by the customer. Along the roadmap of this design the main aspects will be presented in this paper, such as the identifications of the stakeholders and clients, the necessities of the customers, the identification of the requirements of the customer and the product/system requirements and the categorization of these requirements with the QFD (Quality Function Deployment or "House of Quality''). All the followed steps to be presented in this article will contribute to a structured and analyzed process of the modular design of the smart microgrid laboratory platform to start with the conceptual design stage of this system.