Christian Derksen

Unified Energy Agents as a Base for the Systematic Development of Future Energy Grids

The need for the application of software agents and agent-technologies in highly diversified future energy grids is widely accepted today. Nevertheless, the very general concept of the agent paradigm still leads to misunderstandings and to the fact that agents are meant and utilized for very different tasks. Accordingly, the approaches that were presented in the Smart Gird area have major weaknesses in terms of comparability and a subsequently large-scale use. We claim that the introduction of a unified definition of an Energy Agent will help to create a coherent picture that can accelerate further discussions and the conversion of the energy supply. Considering a development cycle that consists of modeling and implementation, simulation, test-bed application and the deployment to real systems, we present here our definition of an Energy Agent that takes into account the law of conservation of energy. Further, we present a classification of Energy Agents according to their sophistication and integration level and outline the need for individual but standardized energetic option models.

Evaluation of Aggregated Systems in Smart Grids: An Example Use-Case for the Energy Option Model

As a result of fast growing share of renewable energy production in the energy market the management of power and its distribution becomes more and more complex. The here presented Energy Option Model (EOM) seems to be a promising solution to handle this newly arisen complexity. This paper will present the EOM and analyze its capabilities in centralized evaluation of aggregated systems. The example use-case will be the charging process of a fleet of electric vehicles. While the results support the potential of the EOM to implement coordination strategies for aggregations of systems, they also show the general limitations of centralized control solutions for larger groups of systems in the context of smart grids.

The EOM: An adaptive energy option, state and assessment model for open hybrid energy systems

The current transformation process of how energy is supplied attracts great interest from many different market players. As a consequence, many proprietary solutions for “smart” energy applications are flooding the market. This turns out to be rather a problem than part of the solution for the systematic development of future energy grids. Additionally, the absence of necessary standards blocks further developments that enable the creation of novel, market-driven and hybrid control solutions. To overcome these problems, we suggest a standardized control approach for hybrid energy systems by means of a so called Energy Option Model (EOM). This unifying model and the therewith developed decision support system provides the necessary technical understanding and the economic assessment options for network-connected energy conversion systems. Thus, it can be used for single on-site systems as well as for aggregated systems that are controlled in centralized or decentralized manner. This paper presents and discusses exemplary use cases for our EOM that illustrate the centralized as well as the decentralized use of our approach within hybrid energy systems. Overall, we believe that the EOM represents the key approach for a further systematic development of an open hybrid energy grid.

Energy Agents - Foundation for Open Future Energy Grids

Redefining our energy landscape by means of regenerative, volatile and decentralized organized systems represents a major challenge for the creation of distributed control solutions. Standards are required that permit describing the variety of energy conversion systems and that enable an interoperable exchange of energy amounts in an open, flexible manner by concurrently taking into account technical and market requirements. This paper introduces the concept of unifying Energy Agents. They have the potential to reduce the ever growing complexity that comes along with the various solutions presented or that are already available at the market. In contrast to that, the notion of Energy Agents stands in our view as a representative for a required methodology that enables a consistent development of de-centralized control solutions. In order to demonstrate this approach, the application of Energy Agents in a smart house scenario is discussed. It is shown how arbitrary agents with different levels of sophistication and abilities can cooperate with each other in a smooth way. It is our strong believe that a stepwise and standardized development of Energy Agents representing the needed decentralized control solutions is needed for a sustainable design of an open Future Energy Grid.

An advanced agent-based simulation toolbox for the comprehensive simulation of future energy networks

The conversion of our energy supply systems is practically just at the beginning. Technically distributed, hybrid and individual energy producer and consumer have to be coupled to form individual small(er) smart markets. Thus, it can be expected that the interactions and dependencies between technical and economical systems will increase. A sound understanding of the limits in the interaction between smart grids and smart markets will be a key point for the further development of energy grids. This paper argues that agents, multi-agent system and agent based simulations are a promising approach to deal with many of the new challenges connected to smart grids. For the time being appropriate, standardized simulation tools for the new and maybe hybrid smart energy systems are not yet available. However, their existence would accelerate the development of intelligent energy networks substantially.

Cross-Domain Energy Savings by Means of Unified Energy Agents

Abstract This chapter presents a novel approach to dynamic resource allocation in hybrid energy grid scenarios, called energy-agents . This concept allows the easy control of inter-domain energy exchanges, such as heat generation from electricity or gas, the production of gas from electricity, or vice versa, based on the first law of thermodynamics. In a first hardware and software implementation, we were able to showcase the functionality and usability of this approach, enabling the developers of smart grid solutions to use the same code throughout the entire development process. This reusability will help to keep down development time and costs. On top of this, we were able to realize energy and cost savings by dynamically allocating the energy sources, as required by the consumer processes.

Energiesysteme und das Paradigma des Agenten

Das Paradigma des Agenten findet zunehmend Anwendung in hochdynamischen und komplexen Bereichen, welche koordinierte oder koordinierende Prozesse erfordern. In diesem Beitrag werden neue Anforderungen an die Systeme der Energieversorgung und des Netzbetriebes vorgestellt und diskutiert, inwieweit das Agenten-Paradigma diesen gerecht werden kann.

Hardware Integration and Real-Time Control in an Agent-Based Distribution Grid Simulation

In recent years, several developments in the energy sector have been imposing major challenges on our energy supply infrastructure. Due to the liberalization of the energy markets that started in the 1990s, longstanding monopolies are being broken up and new actors enter the stage. An increasing awareness regarding the environmental impacts of fossil fuel-based electricity generation put renewable energy sources like wind and solar on a lasting growth path. The volatility inherent to these sources and the shift from centralized to decentralized generation necessitate new approaches as to how energy is marketed, distributed and consumed. The smart grid, i.e. equipping the energy infrastructure with modern information and communication technology, is widely considered essential in addressing the challenges outlined.

Testbed Application of Energy Agents

This work introduces the concept of testbed application of energy agents, which is the intermediate step between testing agents in pure simulation environment and deploying them in real energy distribution systems. In the testbed application case, the energy agent is taken from the simulation environment and deployed to dedicated hardware, where it controls a simulated or real technical system, while still working against a simulated environment. Compared to a pure simulation environment, this application case raises a number of new challenges, mainly resulting from inter-platform agent communication. In this work these challenges are discussed and an implementation handling them is presented and evaluated.

Einheitliches und durchgängiges Engineering von Steuerungslösungen für hybride Energiesysteme und -netze mittels Energie-Agenten

Zusammenfassung Im Rahmen des vom BMWi geförderten Projekts Agent.HyGrid werden vereinheitlichte Energie-Agenten als Steuerungslösung für hybride Energiesysteme und -netze entwickelt und auf ihre Anwendbarkeit hin untersucht. Hierbei werden sowohl vereinheitlichte Daten- und Verhaltensmodelle entwickelt als auch ein Referenz- und Entwicklungsprozess entworfen. Mit diesem durchgehenden Entwicklungsprozess soll die Anwendung der Energie-Agenten, angefangen von der Planungs- und Simulationsphase bis hin zum realen Einsatz im physischen Vor-Ort-System, ermöglicht werden. Als Energie-Agent wird dabei grundsätzlich ein autonomes, dezentral operierendes Software-System verstanden, das unabhängig von der Sparte bzw. vom Energieträger auf mehreren Ebenen eines Energie-Verteilnetzes eingesetzt werden kann. Durch die Kombination unterschiedlicher Energieträger sollen insbesondere volatile Energieerzeugungsanlagen, wie Windkraft- und Solaranlagen, besser ins Energienetz integriert werden. Die Herausforderungen des Projekts liegen vor allem in der vereinheitlichten Modellierung unterschiedlicher Energieträger und -umwandlungsanlagen sowie in der Überbrückung der Lücke zwischen Simulation und der realen Anwendung vor Ort. Dieser Artikel stellt die bisherigen Erkenntnisse in Hinblick auf die Anwendung des Entwicklungsprozesses und des einheitlichen Datenmodells dar.