Ontology-based demand-side flexibility management in smart grids using a multi-agent system

Power distribution network management must integrate with demand side management, alongside distributed energy resources, in order to meet sustainability, resilience, and economic challenges through a smart grid approach. This paper presents an implementation of the Universal Smart Energy Framework (USEF) through a multiagent system and a novel semantic web ontology, which aligns and enriches relevant existing standards. USEF provides a common specification of the market processes and information exchange but does not specify the internal reasoning of the different roles involved. The authors explain the systematic design and development process from the requirements of the energy-flexibility value chain to software implementation. The underpinning ontology formalizes a domain perspective which is coherent with existing standards, and is sufficient for the agent-oriented implementation of the mentioned framework. As well as contributing this model as a web ontology artifact, the presented work utilizes metaprogramming to transform the domain model into a standard agent communication language ontology. The research reported in this paper is expected to lead towards efficient and scalable development of decision support and automation software for smart grids.