This document presents the final work carried out for the creation of an emulation software architecture aimed at the management and coordinated control of residential users.
The proposed architecture is able to integrate real resources, such as RSE’s PREVO (PRosumer EVOluto) laboratory, and emulated entities, such as other domestic users and providers of user services such as, for example, energy management and optimization.
The developed platform is composed of multiple modules. The main module is the one used to emulate the behavior of a large number of users. Moreover, there are modules used to control individual users, such as the local energy manager (EMS), which is able to manage the resources available to the user (household appliances, storage systems and electric vehicles) in order to comply with contractual constraints and fulfill comfort objectives, but also to allow for the interaction of the user with other subjects. The external world is represented here by the aggregator, who has the task of coordinating the energy behavior of the users associated with him so that the ‘flexibility’ of their aggregate is significant from an energy point of view, and therefore has a significant impact on the electricity grid. The aggregator module internally implements the management of requests to change energy behavior for users through which the aggregator itself can participate in the network services market. Requests to change energy behavior are designed to act on two different time horizons: real time and planning for the next day. As far as the latter is concerned, an optimization service has been developed that allows you to program the optimal management of the devices at the user’s premises.
Although several pilot projects relating to energy communities and participation in the flexibility services market are currently underway, an emulation platform allows you to test different scenarios without the technological, legislative and temporal constraints that these projects inevitably present.