Electrical · Smart Grid & Energy Management
Virtual Power Plant (VPP) Simulation
Advanced 6 weeks 40-70 hours
Build a mini VPP: two small sources (solar + battery) feeding a shared load through relays. Program dispatch logic that picks the source to meet demand and log the decisions.
Major
Electrical
Focus area
Smart Grid & Energy Management
Total hours
40-70 hours
What you'll need
- 10W 12V polycrystalline solar panel
- 18650 lithium rechargeable battery pack
- Arduino Mega 2560 R3 microcontroller board
- 5V 4-channel relay module for Arduino
- INA219 DC current voltage power monitor sensor module 2 pack
- LM2596 DC-DC buck converter step-down module pack
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Steps
- Draw the system: solar panel and battery feeding one shared load through relays.
- Build the circuit with the buck converters, relays, and INA219 sensors on each source.
- Program dispatch logic that picks solar, battery, or both based on demand and battery charge.
- Log every dispatch decision with source power and load demand.
- Test the system across a sunny day, a cloudy day, and a high-demand period.
- Chart dispatch decisions over time and document the project for your portfolio.
What to photograph for your portfolio
- Mini-VPP hardware
- dispatch decision logs
- generation vs load plots
- source-switching demo
Resume bullet starters
Copy one, then swap in your own numbers.
Engineered a virtual power plant (vpp) simulation using Microgrid control, embedded dispatch logic, energy management
Applied Arduino to implement, test, and validate the analysis end-to-end
Quantified performance with [insert your result, such as accuracy, error reduction, response time, or load capacity] after iterative tuning
Skills you'll show off
Microgrid controlembedded dispatch logicenergy managementArduino