An Extensible Simulator for Dynamic Control of Residential Area: Case Study on Heating Control

The energy world is quite complex: energy is moved, stored and transformed using a heterogeneous and vastly distributed infrastructure. The move towards a cleaner and more sustainable energy system, which is favoured by people, has major implications on the energy system. Large controllable plants will be replaced by small distributed units featuring most of the time a stochastic behaviour. To accommodate these changes, the energy system as a whole must become more flexible. Many processes like building heating or cooling feature some level of flexibility. This potential flexibility is mostly unused today. To make the energy system more flexible, some of its elements must be orchestrated so they interact harmoniously. In this context, simulation is an appropriate approach to test and evaluate distributed control strategies. Indeed, it avoids the deployment of real, costly infrastructures and complaints of users. This paper presents a simulator based on statistical information simulating behaviours of consumers, building properties, and implications of external data in energy management.