Publications: June 2010 Archives

This  document  presents  a  roadmap  towards  the  standardisation  of  the  MIRACLE specifications  for  the  exchange  of  information  around  management  of  energy  demand and supply. A long list of 15 potential standardisation organisations has been set-up and briefly  described  with  respect  to  three  criteria:  type  of  standardisation  organisation,  its geographic  scope  and  focus  on  energy  management.  From  this  list  a  short  list  of  4 different  standardisation  organisations  has  been  selected.  These  are  CEN/CENELEC, IEC,  IEEE  and  the  combination  of  ebIX  and  ENTSO-E.  For  these  organisations,  an additional four criteria have been described, namely openness of organisation, complexity of  procedures,  impact on  the  energy  sector  and  potential  success  of  standardisation  of the MIRACLE specifications.
 
Based  on  this  set  of  seven  criteria  in  total,  CEN/CENELEC  has  been  selected  as  the target  standardisation  organisation.  The  MIRACLE  project  will  strive  to  get  a  so-called CEN  Workshop  Agreement  (CWA)  as  the  standardisation  product  at  the  end  of  the project. The roadmap towards this CWA is worked-out in more detail and the coordination with  CEN/CENELEC  during  the  project  is  described.  Thereby,  the  CWA  process  is aligned  with  the  original  planning  of  the  WP7  deliverables  of  MIRACLE.  The  resulting CWA  can  be  used  after  the  lifetime  of  the  MIRACLE  project  as  a  basis  for  further standardisation  towards  a  European  Norm  (EN),  which  is  the  highest  level  of  formal standardisation to be achieved within Europe.
 
The  main  conclusion  and  advice  is  that  the  MIRACLE  project  should  adhere  to  the
roadmap sketched in this document and try to align the WP7 activities during M18 and
M36 with a CWA process at CEN/CENELEC. [read more]

Authors:
Jack P.C. Verhoosel, Roel E. Stap, TNO

Integration, testing and validation of the developed Miracle methodologies and algorithms will be performed in two testing environments. In one, an important part will be simulation based data analyses of the MeRegio project; and in the other, the running of the test scenarios on in the CRES test bed.

The MeRegio project plans to set up the pilot region with 1,000 consumers, with the goal to minimize the CO2 emissions at energy supply. A side result of the project will be also substantial amount of the measured energy consumption data, which shall be used as an input for the testing and validation of the Miracle project.

The CRES test bed provides the necessary facilities and resources like RES, measurement equipment and corresponding infrastructure to implement and test the Miracle features in a controlled environment.

Both in the development as well as in the testing phase of the project, the approaches, solutions and experiences of other similar projects can be of benefit. In its second part, the report briefly describes the projects in the same general field as the Miracle project, and which are now in the developing or concluding phases and which - to the extent that the concepts and solutions are already formulated and available for interested parties outside the project partners - could be used as references for state-of-the-art in the neighboring and cross-section fields with Miracle. The projects identified, shortly presented and their intersection with Miracle discussed, are: FENIX, EU DEEP, AEOLUS, MORE MICROGRIDS, ADDRESS, EDISON, DLC-VIT4IP and Smart House/Smart Grid. [read more]

Authors:
Hellmuth Frey, EnBW; Stathis Tselepis, Evangelos Rikos, CRES; Matjaž Bobnar, INEA; Torben Bach Pedersen, AAU; Matthias Boehm, TUD; Henrike Berthold, SAP; Gregor Černe, Zoran Marinšek, INEA

Energy market deregulation and environmental sustainability increase the need for efficiency and flexibility of energy systems. New services are sougt to ensure reliable supply, utilize the renewable energy sources (RES), and balance the costs and benefits of the involved parties. In this context, the European FP7 project MIRACLE (Micro-Request-Based Aggregation, Forecasting and Scheduling of Energy Demand, Supply and Distribution) proposes a conceptual and infrastructural approach allowing electricity distributors to manage higher amounts of renewable energy and balance supply and demand. For this purpose, MIRACLE introduces the concept of micro-requests that allow consumers and producers to specify flexibilities of their energy profiles in terms of the energy amounts and their time shifts. Such micro-requests from numerous consumers and producers will enable fine-grained scheduling of consumption and production of electricity, and maintaining a system-wide balance between demand and supply.

Work Package 5 (WP5) of the MIRACLE project deals with scheduling and negotiation in the proposed approach. Based on the forecast of energy supply and demand, negotiation will take place to determine how and when consumption and production can be matched, and a schedule for production and consumption will be determined. The goals of WP5 are to specify a framework to schedule production and consumption for the forthcoming period, specify a negotiation framework, implement and integrate the two frameworks, and validate them on real data from the project trial cases.

This deliverable is a result of the WP5 preparatory phase and reports on the state-of-the-art in scheduling and negotiation approaches. Regarding scheduling, it first presents a common type of scheduling problems together with their properties, and introduces some characteristic aspects of the scheduling domain. It then focuses on scheduling in energy sector where it identifies particular problems: generation scheduling, unit commitment and economic dispatch. Finally, it reviews methods applied in solving scheduling problems in energy sector, including deterministic and meta-heuristic techniques, and with a special attention to the approaches for deregulated markets. The state-of-the art survey on negotiation approaches starts with an introduction to negotiations and two negotiation types: bilateral contracts and auctions. Energy exchange auctions are then described with the focus on hourly bids, block bids, pricing and trading phases. Examples of multi-agent negotiation systems are then presented, taken from related projects and the literature. The report concludes with comments related to further work on both scheduling and negotiation in MIRACLE. [read more]

Authors:
Bogdan Filipič, Erik Dovgan, JSI; Alexandr Savinov, SAP

In the energy domain, one of the most important goals is the integration of more renewable energy sources (RES, e.g., windmills, solar panels). Unfortunately, most RES depend on external factors such as wind speed and the amount of sunlight. Hence, available power from RES cannot be planned as traditional energy sources and thus, there is the need of balancing energy demand and supply. We address this requirement within the MIRACLE (Micro-Request-Based Aggregation, Forecasting and Scheduling of Energy Demand, Supply and Distribution) project with a micro-request-based approach, where acceptable flexibilities (e.g., timeshifts or variable amount) can be specified by consumers and producers along with concrete energy demand and supply, respectively. These flexibilities allow for fine-grained scheduling and thus, balancing of demand and supply. Accurate and efficient forecasts for short-term and long-term horizons of energy consumption and production as well as for requests with timeshifts are a fundamental precondition for dynamic and fine-grained scheduling of energy demand and supply.

In this survey, we give a detailed overview of forecast models for energy demand and supply. First, we reveal typical data characteristics of energy demand and supply. Second, we describe the mathematical background of time series forecasting in general. Furthermore, we review existing domain-specific techniques of forecasting energy demand, supply and prices as well as how these techniques can be integrated into a system architecture of a data management system. Third, we select representative forecast models from the main categories of existing techniques and evaluate their accuracy with regard to different time horizons. Fourth, we identify major challenges and open problems that should be addressed in order to enable accurate and efficient forecasting as a fundamental prerequisite for scheduling energy demand and supply. Finally, the scheduling of energy demand and supply will allow (1) to smoothen cost-extensive peaks, (2) to integrate more renewable energy sources, and (3) to balance energy demand and supply. [read more]

Authors:
Lars Dannecker, SAP; Matthias Boehm, Ulrike Fischer, Frank Rosenthal, TUD; Gregor Hackenbroich, SAP; Wolfgang Lehner, TUD

Today, many countries aim to increase the share of energy consumed that comes from renewable sources. Unfortunately, the electrical power produced from weather-dependent renewable energy sources (RESs; e.g., wind turbines, solar panels) is produced in varying quantities that do not match the varying energy needs. As more and more such renewable energy becomes available, it becomes an increasingly difficult challenge to maintain an energy system that enables the effective use of all available renewable energy. Consequently, tackling this problem is one of the top goals in the energy domain.

The Miracle (Micro-Request-Based Aggregation, Forecasting and Scheduling of Energy Demand, Supply and Distribution) project aims to invent and prototype key elements of an energy system that is better able to accommodate large volume of electricity from renewable sources. The approach, taken is based on micro-requests that allow an individual consumer/producer to specify acceptable flexibilities in the amounts of energy consumed and the times when this is done. The introduction of such micro-requests from millions of consumers/producers enables fine-grained scheduling of consumption and production of electricity while maintaining a system-wide balance between demand and supply. In order to appropriately manage very large volumes of micro-requests, a reliable, distributed, and highly scalable computer  system infrastructure is needed.

This deliverable concerns Work Package 3, "State-of-the-art report on data collection and analysis" in the Miracle project. We first introduce Miracle's application scenario along with the consequent requirements to the data management infrastructure. Then we survey the state-of-the-art of relevant, existing work on data collection, data integration, query processing, and query optimization from the perspective of the project's requirements. Specifically, the survey covers the following key topics: (1) virtually and materialized integrated systems, including column stores; (2) data exchange solutions, including ETL tools, EAI servers, and data stream management systems; (3) web-scale data management; (4) management of uncertainty in the context of probabilistic databases, OLAP, and data streams; (5) management of  multi-version data; (6) efficient tracking of continuous processes; and (7) query optimization based on early aggregation and materialized views. Moreover, relevant existing computer systems in the energy domain are covered. For all technologies surveyed, the relation to Miracle is discussed. [read more]

Authors:
Laurynas Šikšnys, AAU; Matthias Boehm, TUD; Torben B. Pedersen, Christian S. Jensen, Dalia Martišiuté, AAU

This document provides an overview of the state of the art that is relevant for WP2 of the Miracle project; Data Specification. There are two subjects that form the main focus of this state of the art report; modeling approaches and existing models. Three modeling approaches are described; Unified Modeling Language (UML), UN/CEFACT's Modeling Methodology (UMM) and Object Role Modeling (ORM). For the existing models, two international standard organizations are relevant; ebiX and IEC. ebiX has developed models for Customer Switching Process and for the Exchange of Metered Data. These models describe the business processes and the corresponding message definitions and do so by using the aforementioned UN/CEFACT's Modeling Methodology. The Common Information Model (CIM) is a data model by the IEC that aims to describe all major objects that an electric utility enterprise is typically involved with.

The following conclusions are drawn:

• UMM is the methodology of choice for the development of the WP2 deliverables. It is an international standard that describes different viewpoints that help guide the process of modeling. The artifacts that are part of these viewpoints are UML based. UMM has also been adopted by ebiX which serves as a good example of the application of UMM for the energy area.

• The main subject of the Miracle project; shiftable consumption and/or production is not being covered by the existing models in the energy area. Therefore specific models will have to be developed in Miracle that are able to cope with these concepts.

• Part of the Common Information Model by the IEC provides a solid basis for the Miracle data model. Basic energy concepts that already have been modeled can be reused.

[read more]

Authors:
M.J. Konsman, F.J. Rumph, TNO

The energy sector is in transition. Firstly, the deregulation process forces companies to restructure their value chain in order to increase their market efficiency. Secondly, in order to reduce carbon emissions, the use of renewable energy sources is enforced by national and international regulations. Thirdly, smart metering is being widely adopted. The main goal of the MIRACLE project is to develop an ICT system that fits the future deregulated energy sector and enables the integration of a higher rate of distributed and renewable energy sources into the electricity grid. We will explore a micro-request-based approach for demand side management in which electricity producers and consumers issue micro-requests indicating flexibilities in time and amount of the electricity profiles. These requests will be processed by our system in order to balance electricity supply and demand in near real-time.

In this deliverable, we describe the conceptual architecture of the energy data management system (EDMS) developed in the MIRACLE project. The architecture reflects the hierarchical organization of the energy domain in balance groups and market balance areas. The requirements for the system are derived from the project goals and an estimation of the volume and number of messages exchanged within the EDMS and the volume of the data to be stored persistently in the EDMS.

A major prerequisite to design the EDMS in a way that it will be applicable to the future deregulated energy sector is to understand the current situation of the energy sector in different European countries and foresee its future structure. We therefore describe the current national electricity markets for some European countries in detail and compare the national roles to the roles defined in the ETSO harmonized model. We then describe characteristics of the MIRACLE system and based on that we specify three use cases that represent these characteristics. The processes associated with the use cases, the ETSO roles involved in them and the base processes identified are described and listed.  The description of the MIRACLE role model reflects the status of the current discussion within the MIRACLE team. The final specification of the MIRACLE roles and processes is planned for the next deliverable (D1.2 Final role model and process specification). [read more]

Authors:
Henrike Berthold, Alexandr Savinov SAP; Laurynas Šikšnys, Torben Bach Pedersen, Christian S. Jensen, AAU; Hellmuth Frey, EnBW; Christos Nychtis, CRES; Mente Konsman, Frens Jan Rumph, TNO; Matjaž Bobnar, Zoran Marinšek, Gregor Černe, INEA; Bogdan Filipič, JSI; Matthias Boehm, TUD