Hartmut Schmeck

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology | KIT · Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods

This note aims at supporting research on Building Energy Management (BEM), which addresses the active optimization of energy consumption patterns of buildings. For the practical evaluation of BEM algorithms, communication with devices in the building is required. Therefore, it is common to set up a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), i.e. a software...

Flexibility in consumption and production provided by distributed energy resources (DERs) is a key to the integration of renewable energy sources into the energy system. However, even for identical DERs, the flexibility can vary widely, based on local constraints and circumstances. Therefore, handcrafting models can be labor-intensive and automatin...

Low-voltage distribution grids face new challenges through the expansion of decentralized,renewable energy generation and the electrification of the heat and mobility sectors. We present amulti-agent system consisting of the energy management systems of smart buildings, a central gridcontroller, and the local controller of a transformer. It can coo...

Power system operation increasingly relies on numerous day-ahead forecasts of local, disaggregated loads such as single buildings, microgrids and small distribution system areas. Various data-driven models can be effective predicting specific time series one-step-ahead. The aim of this work is to investigate the adequacy of neural network methodolo...

The German Smart Meter Gateway (SMGW) infrastructure enables digital access to metering data and distributed energy resources by external parties. There are, however, various restrictions in order to guarantee the privacy of consumers, and strong security requirements. Furthermore, in the current state of development, there are still several challe...

Abstract Communicating the energetic flexibility of distributed energy resources (DERs) is a key requirement for enabling explicit and targeted requests to steer their behavior. The approach presented in this paper allows the generation of load profiles that are likely to be feasible, which means the load profiles can be reproduced by the respectiv...

DOI https://doi.org/10.1186/s42162-019-0098-7

The introduction of Smart Meter Gateways (SMGWs) to buildings and households creates new opportunities and challenges for energy management systems. While SMGWs provide interfaces for accessing recorded information and enable communication to external parties, they also restrict data access to protect the privacy of inhabitants and facility owners....

Abstract Building operating systems play an important role in monitoring energy consumption of devices and improving energy efficiency in household buildings. From this arises a need for a preferably flexible and full-featured user interface to visualize the energy data in the building and allow residents to collect and realize various needs and pr...

This paper estimates the potential to reduce market-based charging and discharging of a battery energy storage system (BESS) that provides frequency containment reserve (FCR) through (a) the utilization of degrees of freedom (DOFs) during reserve provision, and (b) the utilization of the flexibility of local power units (LPUs) at an investigated in...

The flexibility of distributed energy resources (DERs) can be modeled in various ways. Each model that can be used for creating feasible load profiles of a DER represents a potential model for the flexibility of that particular DER. Based on previous work, this paper presents generalized patterns for exploiting such models. Subsequently, the idea o...

The application of Deep Learning methodologies to Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) gave rise to a new family of Neural NILM approaches which increasingly outperform traditional NILM approaches. In this extended abstract describing our ongoing research, we analyze recent Neural NILM approaches and our findings imply that these approaches have di...

There has been a large number of contributions on privacy-preserving smart metering with Differential Privacy, addressing questions from actual enforcement at the smart meter to billing at the energy provider. However, exploitation is mostly limited to application of cryptographic security means between smart meters and energy providers. We illustr...

There has been a large number of contributions on privacy-preserving smart metering with Differential Privacy, addressing questions from actual enforcement at the smart meter to billing at the energy provider. However, exploitation is mostly limited to application of cryptographic security means between smart meters and energy providers. We illustr...

This paper presents a novel approach to the representation and communication of the energy flexibility of distributed energy resources. The approach uses artificial neural networks (ANNs) to represent the devices and act as surrogate models. The main benefit of this approach is its potential to represent arbitrary energy flexibilities and the resul...

This poster proposes a new method to generate individual time-of-use electricity tariffs to exploit the flexibility of energy prosumers while preserving privacy and minimizing communication effort as well as computational cost. Since an employed tariff structure may be impossible to derive analytically from a particular behavior of a prosumer, arti...

Battery energy storage systems are a key to the utilization of renewable energies, allowing for short-term storage of electricity and balancing of energy generation and consumption. However, the optimal operation of these systems is still an area of research. This paper presents operating strategies and their optimization with respect to total oper...

This work performs a security analysis of the vehicle-to-grid charging protocol ISO 15118 and presents various scenarios of how to compromise the availability of the charging service or the integrity, authenticity, or confidentiality of the communication on a protocol level. Furthermore, it analyzes processes related to the authentication, transfer...

Following political strategy changes with the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the German power system has experienced a great penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources. The volatile electricity generation of renewable energy sources requires greater flexibility not only on the electricity supply but also on the demand side. The...

The BDEW smart grid traffic light concept is a framework to tackle some of the challenges posed by the transition of the energy system. In the project grid-control a system based on this concept has been implemented. This paper gives an overview of the system and outlines the building energy management system (BEMS) that will be installed and teste...

Scalarization functions represent preferences in multi-objective optimization by mapping the vector of objectives to a single real value. Optimization techniques using scalarized preferences mainly focus on obtaining only a single global preference optimum. Instead, we propose considering all local and global scalarization optima on the global Pare...

This poster presents three electric reference scenarios for a rural area, a village, and a suburb, providing data for the grids, the connected households as well as distributed generation. The scenarios resemble the situation in Germany, giving data for the present as well as future parametrizations and making it available to a larger public for th...

Following the ongoing transformation of the European power system, in the future, it will be necessary to locally balance the increasing share of decentralized renewable energy supply. Therefore, a reliable short-term load forecast down to the level of single low-voltage end-consumers might be required. In this work, we outline how to improve the K...

This poster presents ongoing work on an occupancy detection system based on data fusion of various low-cost sensors within a real smart building and compares the results of different classification approaches.

Solutions that provide a balance between different objective values in multi-objective optimization can be identified by assessing the curvature of the Pareto front. We analyze how methods based on angles have been utilized in the past for this task and propose a new angle-based measure—angle utility—that ranks points of the Pareto front irrespecti...

This paper presents challenges and issues in smart buildings and the Internet of Things (IoT), which we identified in years of research in real buildings. To tackle these challenges, a decentralized service-oriented architecture based on a message-oriented middleware has been implemented for the domain of smart buildings. It uses a network-transpar...

The KIT Energy Smart Home Lab is a smart residential building comprising building automation systems, metering systems, sensors, intelligent home appliances, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment, distributed generation, and energy storage systems. Recently, to facilitate fully functional power hardware-in-the-loop simulations and ev...

Demand response in the low-voltage domain has been ofter proposed to mitigate the volatility of the renewable energy supply. Therefore, an accurate demand forecast in this domain is indispensable to effectively manage balancing power. At the same time, load profile based forecasting techniques, such as standardized load profiles commonly used in th...

Cogeneration is the simultaneous generation of electricity and useful heat with the aim of exploiting more efficiently the energy stored in the fuel. Cogeneration is, however, a complex process that encompasses a great amount of sub-systems and variables. This fact makes it very difficult to obtain an analytical model of the whole plant, and theref...

To support the utilization of renewable energies, an optimized operation of energy systems is important. Often, the use of battery energy storage systems is stated as one of the most important measures to support the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources into the energy system. Additionally, the complexity of the energy system with i...

The optimization of operating times and operation modes of devices and systems that consume or generate electricity in buildings by building energy management systems promises to alleviate problems arising in today’s electricity grids. Conflicting objectives may have to be pursued in this context, giving rise to a multi-objective optimization probl...

In this paper, we address the rescheduling of shiftable loads in a sub-section of the power grid (micro-grid) to maximize the utilization of renewable energy sources (RES). The objective is to achieve a schedule for all customers in the micro-grid such that the RES output utilization is maximized. Customers correspond to residential households prov...

To enable the efficient utilization of energy carriers and the successful integration of renewable energies into energy systems, building energy management systems (BEMS) are inevitable. In this article, we present a modular BEMS and its customizable architecture that enable a flexible approach towards the optimization of building operation. The sy...

The share of renewable generation (RG) in the energy mix has seen constant growth in recent years. RG is volatile and not (fully) controllable. Consequently, the alignment of stochastic demand with supply, which is fundamental for ensuring grid stability, becomes more difficult. The utilization of demand side flexibility as well as RG portfolio des...

This book provides selected results from the accompanying research of the project CROME. The vision of the project was to create and test a safe, seamless, user-friendly and reliable mobility with electric vehicles between France and Germany as a prefiguration of a pan-European electric mobility system. Major aims were contributions to the European...

Energy systems are undergoing substantial changes as more and more energy is generated by distributed power plants and from renewable energy sources. This decentralization and intermittency of generation has a significant impact on low voltage power grids. To assess the effects on the grid, we present a scenario that comprises a number of prosumers...

The transition from fossil energy carriers and nuclear power to renewable energies and distributed generation is a challenge for society. It includes all energy carriers, such as electricity and gas, and the flexibilization of energy consumption, given the fact that renewable energies are mostly intermittent and causing fluctuating generation. Opt...

The FZI House of Living Labs is a research and demonstration environment that facilitates interdisciplinary research, development, and evaluation in real-life scenarios. It consists of various Living Labs addressing different research topics. In the Living Lab smartEnergy, solutions for the energy system of the future are investigated. For this rea...

The transition of power grids towards distributed and renewable energy generation leads to challenges with respect to stability and operation of distribution grids that have to be tackled with adequate systems, technologies, and control meth-ods. Therefore, we propose a hierarchical control architecture for distribution grids based on the principle...

The integration of decentralized energy resources is associated with new challenges for the operation of low voltage distribution grids. At the same time, the interconnection of these systems offers large potential for providing smart grid services to increase power quality and grid stabilization in areas with a high penetration of renewable energy...

Scalarization techniques are a popular method for articulating preferences in solving multi-objective optimization problems. These techniques, however, have so far proven to be ill-suited in finding a preference-driven approximation that still captures the Pareto front in its entirety. Therefore, we propose a new concept that defines an optimal dis...

An unprecedented rise of renewable and distributed energy resources imposes unprecedented challenges in terms of complexity to power grids. Multitudes of devices are not only connected to the electricity grid but need appropriate information and communication technologies for proving their services. These devices ask for novel control mechanisms on...

To enable a more efficient utilization of energy carriers, energy management systems (EMS) are designed to optimize the usage of energy in future smart buildings. In this paper, we present an EMS for buildings that uses a novel approach towards optimization of energy flows. The system is capable of handling interdependencies between multiple device...

Electrical power grids are in a phase of transition. Therefore, control mechanisms are needed that allow the integration of renewable energies, decentralized generation and storage systems, as well as electric vehicles into the arising smart grid. In this paper, we propose a privacy-aware architecture based on the principles of Organic Computing to...

This paper investigates the economic potential of local PV generation at EV car parks under consideration of empirical driving profiles, variable electricity prices and individual PV generation patterns. Using a simulation framework and a mixed-integer linear program we examine the PV share which is utilized for EV charging and the corresponding ch...

Eine moderne Stromversorgung in Städten muss aufgrund neuartiger Großverbraucher, wie etwa Elektroautomobilen, und fluktuierender Einspeisung durch Erneuerbare Energien eine zunehmende Flexibilität aufweisen, welche aktuell nur unzureichend bereitgestellt werden kann. Energiemanagementsysteme (EMS) in Gebäuden und neue Stromtarife mit einer flexibl...

Energy Management Systems (EMS) promise a great potential to enable the sustainable and effcient integration of distributed energy generation from renewable sources by optimization of energy flows. In this paper, we present a run-time selection and meta-evolutionary parameter tuning component for optimization algorithms in EMS and an approach for...

Many multi-objective algorithms use volume based quality indicators to approximate the Pareto front. Amongst these, the hypervolume is the most widely used. The distribution of solution sets of finite size μ that maximize the hypervolume have been investigated theoretically. But nearly all results are limited to the bi-objective case. In this paper...

Coal blending processes mainly use static and non-reactive blending methods like the well-known Chevron stacking. Although real-time quality measurement techniques such as online X-ray fluorescence measurements are available, the possibility to explore a dynamic adaptation of the blending process to the current quality data obtained using these tec...

Optimizing several objectives that are often at odds with each other provides difficult challenges that are not encountered if having only one goal at hand. One intuitive way to solve a multi-objective problem is to aggregate the objectives and reformulate it as an optimization problem having just a single goal. This goal can be a designer specific...

In energy systems, the transition from traditional, centralized architecture and controllable generation to an ever more decentralized and volatile generation due to an increasing use of renewable energy sources arises new challenges for the management and balancing of the electricity grid. These can be met through energy management systems (EMS) t...

A major component of the future Smart Grid is an adaptive demand side that allows to handle the fluctuating power supply based on renewable energies. In this paper, we present an evolutionary algorithm that allows for shifting electrical loads generated by heat pumps. Our approach is based on overheating the hot water storage in order to get a high...

Various changes in energy production and consumption lead to new challenges for design and control mechanisms of the energy system. In particular, the intermittent nature of power generation from renewables asks for significantly increased load flexibility to support local balancing of energy demand and supply. This paper focuses on a flexible, gen...

This paper presents the user-friendly plug-and-charge mechanism defined in the ISO/IEC 15118 standard which enables an automatic authentication, authorisation, and billing procedure during the charging process of an electric vehicle. The various certificates, their application in a public key infrastructure as well as the interplay with a clearing...

Energy informatics (EI) is a young and dynamic research area. Recent developments have boosted its relevance. This article provides an overview over the current state of EI research and shows directions for future research in this area. The featured literature survey is geared to the two major EI research themes: smart energy-saving systems and sma...

Due to the increasing importance of producing and consuming energy more sustainably, Energy Informatics (EI) has evolved into a thriving research area within the CS/IS community. The article attempts to characterize this young and highly dynamic field of research by describing current EI research topics and methods and provides an outlook of how th...

Aufgrund der zunehmenden Bedeutung einer nachhaltigen Energieerzeugung und eines sparsameren Verbrauchs hat sich die Energieinformatik (EI) zu einem florierenden Forschungsgebiet innerhalb der (Wirtschafts-)Informatik entwickelt. Der Beitrag versucht, dieses neue und dynamische Forschungsfeld durch die Beschreibung aktueller Themen und Methoden der...

Using mobile devices to support the evacuation of a building is a relatively new and promising research field. An essential requirement to realize this endeavor is to be able to track the location of the mobile devices. Since GPS is generally not available in buildings, alternative localization methods, i.e. methods to determine the devices’ locati...

This paper presents a new decentralized approach for evacuating a large number of people from a building using mobile devices which can communicate locally with each other. We investigate the impact of the local communication between the devices on the evacuation by proposing a new distributed evacuation planning algorithm called distributed Swarm...

A multi-objective optimization problem involves multiple and conflicting objectives. These conflicting objectives give rise to a set of Pareto-optimal solutions. However, not all the members of the Pareto-optimal set have equally nice properties. The classical concept of proper Pareto-optimality is a way of characterizing good Pareto-optimal soluti...

Meeting charging demands of large electric vehicle fleets will raise electrical load significantly and may pose challenges for today's power system. Appropriate coordination of electric vehicle charging can reduce these threats. Acknowledging the interdependency between the transportation and the power system created by electric vehicles, we develo...

Demand response can contribute to system stability and foster integration of renewable energy sources. In our work we model static residential electricity demand together with flexible electric vehicles (EVs) as charging loads. We develop a mixed-integer program to assess the ability of an EV fleet operator to coordinate charging in such a way that...

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are gaining increasing significance with computing devices becoming ubiquitous and equipped with wireless communication modules. Many applications for such networks require the devices to know their position within the network or their distance to other devices. Precise determination of these parameters often fails d...

This paper proposes a novel architectural concept for developing agent-based simulations called Simulation Plugin Interface (SPI); furthermore, a simulation framework called Easy Agent Simulation (EAS) based on the proposed architecture is presented. The SPI introduces an intermediate layer between the simulation engine and the simulation model. It...

Bulk material blending systems still mostly implement static and non-reactive material blending methods like the well-known Chevron stacking. The optimization potential in the existing systems which can be made available using quality analyzing methods as online X-ray fluorescence measurement is inspected in detail in this paper using a multi-objec...

Localization of nodes in ad hoc networks is an essential step in many applications. A major task when localizing nodes is to accurately estimate distances. So far, distance estimation is often based on counting the minimum number of nodes on the shortest routing path (hop count) and presuming a fixed width for one hop. This is prone to error as the...

This paper provides an extension of the rule combining (RC) technique in the Accuracy-based Learning Classifier System (XCS) to handle continuous-valued input. Previously implemented to cope with binaries, the suitability of the newly introduced algorithm is investigated in further tasks. Several experiments are run and the results are compared to...

Hop Count based distance estimation is an important element for the distributed computation of coordinates in GPS free environments. Deriving a distance estimate from hop counts is prone to error especially when the algorithm is applied to a network of mobile devices. We define and analyze two error models to describe the origin of underestimated a...

In this paper, we focus on a real world scenario of energy management of a smart home. External variable signals, reflecting the low voltage grid’s state, are used to address the challenge of balancing energy demand and supply. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear integer programming problem and a load management system, based on a customized e...