MD4: Supervisory and Control Infrastructures

This work package will forecast and intelligently manage demand side utility grid behaviour, leading to a significant reduction in peak loads, primary energy consumption and improved grid operation. A new characterisation methodology, enabling communication between each demand side instance (e.g. building, wastewater treatment plant) or aggregated entity (e.g. campus of buildings) and inter-connected utility networks will be developed, conveying quantitative data, including gas, water, electricity, heating and cooling metrics, energy footprint and CO2 emissions (DOE, 2013). New metrics, including building capacitance, temperature ramping rates, thermal lag and energy savings from harvested rainwater (Warren, 2014), will be defined, integrating end use entities with utility grids (Mancarella, 2013), enabling cohesive integration between commercial, residential (Li and Hong 2013 ; Gans et. al, 2013) and industrial demand side domains (O’Donnell, 2013). Frequency of data transfer is balanced against system needs, with statistical methods used to represent system behaviour. An analytical and modelling infrastructure will be created, leveraging new metrics, to communicate the demand side state in real time. Forecast models will optimise performance at the overall system level, enabling flexibility through virtual storage and demand response (Mahmoudi et. al., 2014). New ancillary services should reduce management workload associated with multiple demand side participants. Multi-utility consolidation can surpass current demand response and load shifting solutions that primarily focus on mitigating peak electrical loads.

Members


Dr Donal Finn
Associate Professor, School of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, University College Dublin
donal.finn@ucd.ie
01 716 1947
Dr Damian Flynn
Associate Professor, School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin
damian.flynn@ucd.ie
01 716 1819
Dr James O'Donnell
Assistant Professor, School of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, University College Dublin
james.odonnell@ucd.ie
+353 1 7161839
Dr Eleni Mangina
Associate Professor, School of Computer Science, UCD
eleni.mangina@ucd.ie
+353 1 7162858
Paul Beagon
PhD Researcher
paul.beagon@ucdconnect.ie
Mohammad Haris Shamsi
PhD Researcher
mohammad.shamsi@ucdconnect.ie
Usman Ali
PhD Researcher
usman.ali@ucdconnect.ie