Dieter Gantenbein

Electric vehicle fleet integration in the danish EDISON project - A virtual power plant on the island of Bornholm

The Danish EDISON project has been launched to investigate how a large fleet of electric vehicles (EVs) can be integrated in a way that supports the electric grid while benefitting both the individual car owners and society as a whole through reductions in CO2 emissions. The consortium partners include energy companies, technology suppliers and research laboratories and institutes. The aim is to perform a thorough investigation of the challenges and opportunities of EVs and then to deliver a technical platform that can be demonstrated on the Danish island of Bornholm. To reach this goal, a vast amount of research is done in various areas of EV technology by the partners. This paper will focus on the ICT-based distributed software integration, which plays a major role for the success of EDISON. Key solution technologies and standards that will accommodate communication and optimize the coordination of EVs will be described as well as the simulation work that will help to reach the goals of the project.

Architecture and Communication of an Electric Vehicle Virtual Power Plant

This paper outlines an architectue of an electric vehicle (EV) based vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integrating virtual power plant (VPP). The overall system architecture, a sketch of the trip-prediction algorithm, and the associated optimization problem are provided. The communication requirements for our proposed architecture are derived, with emphasis on its reliabil- ity, responsiveness, security, and application-level behaviour. We propose extensive use of well- known, standardized, communica- tion protocols between EVs and the centralized VPP to transmit status and trip information from EVs to the VPP as well as to control the charging process.

Facilitating a Generic Communication Interface to Distributed Energy Resources: Mapping IEC 61850 to RESTful Services

As the power system evolves into a smarter and more flexible state, so must the communication technologies that support it. A key requirement for facilitating the distributed production of future grids is that communication and information are standardized to ensure interoperability. The IEC 61850 standard, which was originally aimed at substation automation, has been expanded to cover the monitoring and control of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). By having a consistent and well- defined data model the standard enables a DER aggregator, such as a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), in communicating with a broad array of DERs. If the data model of IEC 61850 is combined with a set of contemporary web protocols, it can result in a major shift in how DERs can be accessed and coordinated. This paper describes how IEC 61850 can benefit from the REpresentational State Transfer (REST) service concept and how a server using these technologies can be used to interface with DERs as diverse as Electric Vehicles (EVs) and micro Combined Heat and Power (µCHP) units.

Relationship Discovery with NetFlow to Enable Business-Driven IT Management

The understanding of relationships and dependencies between business processes and the underlying IT infrastructure is important for enabling business-driven IT management. This work uses the widespread NetFlow feature to derive direct and indirect traffic relationships in IT infrastructures. We define an algorithm for relationship discovery with NetFlow and describe the application of the discovery approach in a large production environment.

Mining semantic relations using NetFlow

Knowing the dependencies among computing assets and services provides insights into the computing and business landscape, therefore, facilitating low-risk timely changes in support of a business-driven IT management. In general, the results of a dependency analysis can be used for infrastructure reengineering, show evidence of policy and process compliance, and support assessments of business resilience. Current passive discovery approaches using network monitoring analyze only direct communication between assets and provide just a single- link mesh view. This work introduces a new algorithm based on NetFlow data preprocessed by the Aurora system developed at IBM Research to create a dependency model of the network. The algorithm uses time-based event correlation and the data mining concept of association rules to detect and classify dependencies that span two or more components. The advantages of the algorithm is that no access credentials are required and no packet payload inspection is performed. The suggested algorithm populates and maintains a dependency model of an observed network that describes dependencies among computer systems, software components, and services. The model combines the mined association rules that express relations between flows into dependencies, which are given intuitive semantics. Tests with simulated and authentic data prove the accuracy of the dependency mining algorithm.

Aggregating the flexibility provided by domestic hot-water boilers to offer tertiary regulation power in Switzerland

This paper shows how the flexibility provided by domestic hot-water boilers can be aggregated to offer power system services. The focus is on tertiary regulation power in Switzerland. The paper reports on our experience and conclusions from real-world experiments with electricity consumers and on the methods used. It thus also provides a starting point for other types of demand-side management using end consumers.

Categorizing Computing Assets According to Communication Patterns

In todays dynamic information society, organizations critically depend on the underlying computing infrastructure. Tracking computing devices as assets and their usage helps in the provision and maintenance of an efficient, optimized service. A precise understanding of the operational infrastructure and its users also plays a key role during the negotiation of outsourcing contracts and for planning mergers and acquisitions. Building an accurate inventory of computing assets is especially difficult in unknown heterogeneous systems and networking environments without prior device instrumentation. User mobility and mobile, not-always-signed-on, computing devices add to the challenge. We propose to complement basic network-based discovery techniques with the combined log information from network and application servers to compute an aggregate picture of assets, and to categorize their usage with data-mining techniques according to detected communication patterns.

Timers in OSI protocols-specifications versus implementation

The authors discuss modeling and implementation of timers in OSI protocols. They examine the Estelle, Lotos, and SDL specification languages with emphasis on the features that can be used to express timing. They develop the corresponding models for timer facilities, and discuss possible mechanisms that would support them. As an example drawn from full implementations of the ISO transport and network layers, the authors describe their particular implementation approach for providing timer support.<<ETX>>

FlexLast: An IT-centric solution for balancing the electric power grid

How can energy from renewable sources be integrated in large quantities into the power supply without overwhelming the grid? A collaboration between BKW, the electric utility in the Canton of Bern, IBM, Migros, Switzerlands largest retailer and supermarket chain, and Swissgrid, the national grid operator is creating a unique solution that applies advanced algorithms to data on the state of the grid and large freezer warehouses to optimize and manage the consumption of power for cooling to help balance the grid. In this paper we describe the architecture of the system and examine the business case required to make this approach feasible.

Implementation of the OSI Transport Service in a Heterogeneous Environment

This paper focuses on the OSI transport service and protocols and their implementation in our experimental OSI communication system for LAN-based distributed environments. After an overview of the transport layer service elements and protocol functions, design issues and related decisions are discussed, along with experiences gathered with our two implementations for IBM S/370 hosts and PC workstations. The issues covered include program/process structuring, inter-layer interfaces, and interactions with the local operating system. Finally, we discuss an enhanced datagram service built on top of the OSI transport service, used for a distributed computing project.