Demand-Side-Management Applications

Dynamic and volatile grid conditions caused by the growing amount of renewable energy producers require the operation of large-scale distributed Demand-Side Management (DSM) applications. This is one of the tasks of the aggregator role in smart grid operation according to the Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM). For the optimization of distributed demand- side loads under such conditions, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have been shown to provide an appropriate paradigm to model, simulate and deploy automated operating components. In this paper, we address an engineering problem that is still a matter of concern, namely the construction of efficient distributed optimization algorithms in conjunction with a generic software architecture. For this purpose, a distributed Multi-Agent architecture is presented with a generic consumer model and an energy exchange market as well as further roles and components. Ant Colony System Optimization is shown to effectively optimize consumers in a nature-inspired, self-organizing way. The applicability of the proposed approach will be demon- strated in a use-case study where a group of heterogenous consumers optimize their runtimes in order to map their demand to the energy generation of a wind power plant in a self-organized fashion.