Massive coordination of residential embedded electricity generation and demand response using the PowerMatcher approach

Different driving forces push the electricity production towards decentralization. The projected increase of distributed power generation on the residential level with an increasing proportion of intermittent renewable energy resources poses problems for continuously matching the energy balance when coordination takes place centrally. On the other hand, new opportunities arise by intelligent clustering of generators and demand in so-called Virtual Power Plants. Part of the responsibility for new coordination mechanisms, then, has to be laid locally. To achieve this, the current electricity infrastructure is expected to evolve into a network of networks (including ICT(Information and Communication Technology)-networks), in which all system parts communicate with one another, are aware of each other's context and may influence each other. In this paper, a multi-agent systems approach, using price signal-vectors from an electronic market is presented as an appropriate technology needed for massive control and coordination tasks in these future electricity networks. The PowerMatcher, a market-based control concept for supply and demand matching (SDM) in electricity networks, is discussed. The results within a simulation study show the ability to raise the simultaneousness of electricity production and consumption within (local) control clusters with cogeneration and heat-pumps by exchanging price signals and coordinated allocation using market algorithms. The control concept, however, can also be applied in other business cases like reduction of imbalance cost in commercial portfolios or virtual power plant operators, utilizing distributed generators. Furthermore, a PowerMatcher-based field test configuration with 15 Stirling-engine powered microCHP's is described, which is currently in operation within a fieldtest in the Netherlands.