Page 35 - European Energy Innovation - winter 2017 publication

Winter 2017 European Energy Innovation 35

COMMUNICATION

FHP

Dynamic Coalitions of distribution grid connected Power
to Heat resources providing local and system level services

The FHP – Flexible Heat and Power project develops a
standards-based multi-stakeholder multi-agent platform
that enables the trading of flexibility provided by Heat
Pumps. The focus is on heat pumps in buildings (residential,
commercial, industrial), as well as heat pumps associated
with a district level – seasonal – heat storage solution
provided by ECOVAT. The prime selected business use
cases relate to the mitigation of local and system level
RES curtailment which is undesirable from societal and
environmental point of view, and forms a barrier for
increased RES investments. But the developed platform is
capable of supporting other business use cases as well, both
in the Day-Ahead /Intra-Day and the real-time time frame.

The work in the project is organized around four pillars.

Pillar 1: Dynamic Coalition Manager at the heart of a Pillar 3: Optimal flex dispatch solution
standard-based Multi-Agent System Based on forecasts of load and (RES) generation, and a
The Dynamic Coalition Manager is a specialization of the local grid model, the DSO performs an analysis on whether,
aggregator role. It performs location aware aggregation where and when local grid problems can be expected. This
of Power-to-Heat flexibility provided by buildings and the results in a flex request formulation towards the Dynamic
ECOVAT, and offers this to the DSO for local technical Coalition Manager. This flex request contains information
RES curtailment mitigation, or the BRP for economic RES on the minimal required flex activations (e.g. load shifting)
curtailment mitigation. There is a bi-directional information that are needed to prevent the forecasted problem, as well
exchange with the flex providers: the latter provide as constraints for the acceptable load shifting solutions.
information on their optimal baseline consumption plan and The Dynamic Coalition Manager(s) determine an optimal
available flex with expected activation cost, and the former flex dispatching plan for each of its available flex resources
communicates the activation decision which is a plan for the that adheres to the flex request, using information on the
next n timesteps. The pool of resources that can be used available flexibility and cost of activation of its current
by the DCM is dynamic, i.e. flex providers can decide freely dynamic coalition.
when and to whom (if there are multiple DCMs) they offer
their flex. Pillar 4: Grid Flexible Heatpump
Currently heatpumps are primarily designed for efficiency,
Pillar 2: Human expert-free multi-zone modelling of not for offering flexibility services. Using them for flexibility
dynamic thermal behaviour services typically is done in an indirect manner, forcing them
To determine the optimal baseline consumption pattern as into a certain power consumption regime based on their
well as the available flexibility, a combination of grey-box heating curves and sensor overrides. In the FHP project
thermal modelling with machine-learning and optimization we explore and prototype ways to control heatpumps in a
algorithms is used. Specifically, a methodology is direct manner in relation to the desired consumption profile.
developed that creates high quality multi-zone models that Besides, we will analyse how to increase their flexible
learn the amount of relevant zones, their adjacency and their operation without impacting their lifetime or safety. ●
relevant parameters in an automated data driven manner
without requiring human expert intervention. This will
provide a replicable solution that can be easily deployed.

Partners

This project has received funding from the Contact Details:
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme under grant Web: www.fhp-h2020.eu
agreement No 731231 Email: chris.caerts@vito.be

www.europeanenergyinnovation.eu