Impact of Service Sector Loads on Renewable Resource Integration

Urban areas consist of a mix of households and services, such as offices, shops, schools, etc. Yet most urban energy models only consider household load profiles, omitting the service sector. Realistic assessment of the potential for renewable resource integration in cities requires models that include detailed demand and generation profiles. Detailed generation profiles are available for many resources. Detailed demand profiles, however, are currently only available for households and not for the service sector. This paper addresses this gap. The paper (1) proposes a novel approach to devise synthetic service sector demand profiles based on a combination of a large number of different data sources, and (2) uses these profiles to study the impact of the service sector on the potential for renewable resource integration in urban energy systems, using the Netherlands as a case study. The importance of the service sector is addressed in a broad range of solar and wind generation scenarios, and in specific time and weather conditions (in a single scenario). Results show that including the service sector leads to statistically significantly better estimations of the potential of renewable resource integration in urban areas. In specific time and weather conditions, including the service sector results in estimations that are up to 33% higher than if only households are considered. The results can be used by researchers to improve urban energy systems models, and by decision-makers and practitioners for grid planning, operation and management}.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures, 4 table

A Topological Investigation of Phase Transitions of Cascading Failures in Power Grids

Cascading failures are one of the main reasons for blackouts in electric power transmission grids. The economic cost of such failures is in the order of tens of billion dollars annually. The loading level of power system is a key aspect to determine the amount of the damage caused by cascading failures. Existing studies show that the blackout size exhibits phase transitions as the loading level increases. This paper investigates the impact of the topology of a power grid on phase transitions in its robustness. Three spectral graph metrics are considered: spectral radius, effective graph resistance and algebraic connectivity. Experimental results from a model of cascading failures in power grids on the IEEE power systems demonstrate the applicability of these metrics to design/optimize a power grid topology for an enhanced phase transition behavior of the system

Deliberate evolution in multi-agent systems

and their applications. SMC is sponsored by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). CWI is a member o

A Framework for Developing Agent-Based Distributed Applications

Abstract—The development of large-scale distributed multiagent systems in open dynamic environments is a challenge. System behavior is often not predictable and can only be evaluated by execution. This paper proposes a framework to support design and development of such systems: a framework in which both simulation and emulation play an important role. A distributed agent platform (AgentScape) is used to illustrate the potential of the framework. Keywords-multi-agent systems, agent-based simulation, emulation, development, distributed systems I

An agent-based infrastructure for energy profile capture and management

Accurately monitoring changing energy usage patterns in households is a first requirement for more efficient and eco-friendly energy management. Such data is essential to the establishment of the Smart Grid, but at this stage, domestic data collection devices are still in development and monitoring-enabled domestic appliances are rare, so that any experimental software framework must be flexible and adaptable both in respect of sensor sources and developer and user requirements. These considerations have been the drivers behind the distributed agent-based platform this paper proposes. It provides: (i) a generic sensor interface that can be specialised for new devices as required, while insulating the rest of the platform from such changes, (ii) persistent unstructured (RDF) data storage, permitting both semantic annotation and semantic-based queries, independent of data sources, and (iii) a flexible, dynamic browser interface, that allows for remote configuration of the sensor platform and accessibility via a wide range of devices. Two small case studies show the utility of the approach

An agent-based infrastructure for energy profile capture and management

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