Sub-agent elements for control methods in multi-agent energy management system

Increased penetration of generation and decentralised control are considered to be feasible and effective solution for reducing cost and emissions and hence efficiency associated with power generation and distribution. Distributed generation in combination with the multi-agent technology are perfect candidates for this solution. Pro-active and autonomous nature of multi-agent systems can provide an effective platform for decentralised control whilst improving reliability and flexibility of the grid

Load frequency controllers considering renewable energy integration in power system

Abstract: Load frequency control or automatic generation control is one of the main operations that take place daily in a modern power system. The objectives of load frequency control are to maintain power balance between interconnected areas and to control the power flow in the tie-lines. Electric power cannot be stored in large quantity that is why its production must be equal to the consumption in each time. This equation constitutes the key for a good management of any power system and introduces the need of more controllers when taking into account the integration of renewable energy sources into the traditional power system. There are many controllers presented in the literature and this work reviews the traditional load frequency controllers and those, which combined the traditional controller and artificial intelligence algorithms for controlling the load frequency

Catching Cheats: Detecting Strategic Manipulation in Distributed Optimisation of Electric Vehicle Aggregators

Given the rapid rise of electric vehicles (EVs) worldwide, and the ambitious targets set for the near future, the management of large EV fleets must be seen as a priority. Specifically, we study a scenario where EV charging is managed through self-interested EV aggregators who compete in the day-ahead market in order to purchase the electricity needed to meet their clients' requirements. With the aim of reducing electricity costs and lowering the impact on electricity markets, a centralised bidding coordination framework has been proposed in the literature employing a coordinator. In order to improve privacy and limit the need for the coordinator, we propose a reformulation of the coordination framework as a decentralised algorithm, employing the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). However, given the self-interested nature of the aggregators, they can deviate from the algorithm in order to reduce their energy costs. Hence, we study the strategic manipulation of the ADMM algorithm and, in doing so, describe and analyse different possible attack vectors and propose a mathematical framework to quantify and detect manipulation. Importantly, this detection framework is not limited the considered EV scenario and can be applied to general ADMM algorithms. Finally, we test the proposed decentralised coordination and manipulation detection algorithms in realistic scenarios using real market and driver data from Spain. Our empirical results show that the decentralised algorithm's convergence to the optimal solution can be effectively disrupted by manipulative attacks achieving convergence to a different non-optimal solution which benefits the attacker. With respect to the detection algorithm, results indicate that it achieves very high accuracies and significantly outperforms a naive benchmark

A generic holonic control architecture for heterogeneous multi-scale and multi-objective smart microgrids

Designing the control infrastructure of future “smart” power grids is a challenging task. Future grids will integrate a wide variety of heterogeneous producers and consumers that are unpredictable and operate at various scales. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions will have to control these in order to attain global objectives at the macrolevel, while also considering private interests at the microlevel. This article proposes a generic holonic architecture to help the development of ICT control systems that meet these requirements. We show how this architecture can integrate heterogeneous control designs, including state-of-the-art smart grid solutions. To illustrate the applicability and utility of this generic architecture, we exemplify its use via a concrete proof-of-concept implementation for a holonic controller, which integrates two types of control solutions and manages a multiscale, multiobjective grid simulator in several scenarios. We believe that the proposed contribution is essential for helping to understand, to reason about, and to develop the “smart” side of future power grids

Agent-based homeostatic control for green energy in the smart grid

With dwindling non-renewable energy reserves and the adverse effects of climate change, the development of the smart electricity grid is seen as key to solving global energy security issues and to reducing carbon emissions. In this respect, there is a growing need to integrate renewable (or green) energy sources in the grid. However, the intermittency of these energy sources requires that demand must also be made more responsive to changes in supply, and a number of smart grid technologies are being developed, such as high-capacity batteries and smart meters for the home, to enable consumers to be more responsive to conditions on the grid in real-time. Traditional solutions based on these technologies, however, tend to ignore the fact that individual consumers will behave in such a way that best satisfies their own preferences to use or store energy (as opposed to that of the supplier or the grid operator). Hence, in practice, it is unclear how these solutions will cope with large numbers of consumers using their devices in this way. Against this background, in this paper, we develop novel control mechanisms based on the use of autonomous agents to better incorporate consumer preferences in managing demand. These agents, residing on consumers' smart meters, can both communicate with the grid and optimise their owner's energy consumption to satisfy their preferences. More specifically, we provide a novel control mechanism that models and controls a system comprising of a green energy supplier operating within the grid and a number of individual homes (each possibly owning a storage device). This control mechanism is based on the concept of homeostasis whereby control signals are sent to individual components of a system, based on their continuous feedback, in order to change their state so that the system may reach a stable equilibrium. Thus, we define a new carbon-based pricing mechanism for this green energy supplier that takes advantage of carbon-intensity signals available on the internet in order to provide real-time pricing. The pricing scheme is designed in such a way that it can be readily implemented using existing communication technologies and is easily understandable by consumers. Building upon this, we develop new control signals that the supplier can use to incentivise agents to shift demand (using their storage device) to times when green energy is available. Moreover, we show how these signals can be adapted according to changes in supply and to various degrees of penetration of storage in the system. We empirically evaluate our system and show that, when all homes are equipped with storage devices, the supplier can significantly reduce its reliance on other carbon-emitting power sources to cater for its own shortfalls. By so doing, the supplier reduces the carbon emission of the system by up to 25% while the consumer reduces its costs by up to 14.5%. Finally, we demonstrate that our homeostatic control mechanism is not sensitive to small prediction errors and the supplier is incentivised to accurately predict its green production to minimise costs

Energy Management of Distributed Generation Systems

The book contains 10 chapters, and it is divided into four sections. The first section includes three chapters, providing an overview of Energy Management of Distributed Systems. It outlines typical concepts, such as Demand-Side Management, Demand Response, Distributed, and Hierarchical Control for Smart Micro-Grids. The second section contains three chapters and presents different control algorithms, software architectures, and simulation tools dedicated to Energy Management Systems. In the third section, the importance and the role of energy storage technology in a Distribution System, describing and comparing different types of energy storage systems, is shown. The fourth section shows how to identify and address potential threats for a Home Energy Management System. Finally, the fifth section discusses about Economical Optimization of Operational Cost for Micro-Grids, pointing out the effect of renewable energy sources, active loads, and energy storage systems on economic operation

An Energy-aware, Fault-tolerant, and Robust Deep Reinforcement Learning based approach for Multi-agent Patrolling Problems

Autonomous vehicles are suited for continuous area patrolling problems. However, finding an optimal patrolling strategy can be challenging for many reasons. Firstly, patrolling environments are often complex and can include unknown environmental factors. Secondly, autonomous vehicles can have failures or hardware constraints, such as limited battery life. Importantly, patrolling large areas often requires multiple agents that need to collectively coordinate their actions. In this work, we consider these limitations and propose an approach based on model-free, deep multi-agent reinforcement learning. In this approach, the agents are trained to automatically recharge themselves when required, to support continuous collective patrolling. A distributed homogeneous multi-agent architecture is proposed, where all patrolling agents execute identical policies locally based on their local observations and shared information. This architecture provides a fault-tolerant and robust patrolling system that can tolerate agent failures and allow supplementary agents to be added to replace failed agents or to increase the overall patrol performance. The solution is validated through simulation experiments from multiple perspectives, including the overall patrol performance, the efficiency of battery recharging strategies, and the overall fault tolerance and robustness