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Beywatch results

The Beywatch project results are described in the present section. They are organised in four chapers:

Results of the laboratory experiments and pilot testings
Lessons learned from the Beywatch project, its subsystems and the system as a whole
Use of results at the type of partner's level: the business opportunities
Potential areas for further research

Results of the lab experiments & pilot testings

The tests of the BeyWatch System have been performed, as defined in detail in the deliverable D6.1, publicly available on this website. The tests consisted in :

Integration tests: their main purpose is to check and verify that the communication functions of the devices (fridge-freezer, washing machine, dishwasher, CPS, watchers and smart meter) are operational and that the functional interface they offer to the Agent is working according to the specifications
valuation tests: their main purpose is to measure or, at least, to assess the performance of the BeyWatch system in home energy consumption and in energy use flexibility (or load management). They were divided in :
- Standalone tests of the devices themselves and on the energy efficicency reached with the improvements made in the BeyWatch project
- Global system tests, designed to evaluate the performance of the BeyWatch system as a whole
- Complementary results on the agent itself, as, even during integration testing or partial system tests, it was possible to extract from the log data provided by the agent the optimization solution that was found and then given to the control module.
Agent Simulation results, that gives the optimization solution of “synthetic” cases, not played for real in the labs but complementary to those made in the labs. • Supervisor tests, in order to verify the correct interworking between the Supervisor and the Agent components and the correct (visual) display of information at the Supervisor web-based front-end
User tests : to assess real users reaction in presence of the BeyWatch System

As a summary :

The integration tests were the main tool for the integration task. Efforts requested to get the BeyWatch system up and working were considerable. This effort was largely underestimated at the beginning, as often happens when integrating several technologies from different manufacturers in a single prototype, but at the end, with some unexpected delay, it leaded to the expected result: an operational integrated system valid to evaluate the impact of ICT in energy efficiency for residential buildings.
Evaluation tests were key, in the sense that they allow to certify that the system and functions that were developed lead to the expected value.
- The standalone tests showed that the technical improvements of the white goods had led roughly to the expected energy savings, even if the goal of class A++ is not fully reached yet for the fridge freezer ; they also learn, in the case of the washing machines, that some optimization ideas that were initially thought were in fact to be left aside.
- With the global system tests and the agent tests, either for real or through simulations, it could effectively be shown that the optimization algorithm is giving the expected results. The accurate models of the white appliances and the automatic control and scheduling of the energy consumption, taking into account the dynamic tariffs, lead to flexible energy use, for the benefit of the user and the utility. However, it can be noted that the cost savings are small, even if we report them for a full year period, which leads to further consideration on how to still make them happen.
The supervisor tests showed a good operation between the supervisor and the agent. However, a full test would require a number of agents to be aggregated according the requests of the supervisor, which would be possible for example with a trial on the field.
The user tests showed the interest of the users for the BeyWatch services, as presented in the GUI and the so-called Beywidgets. The main findings were that :
- The service was perceived as highly valuable by most users. o Users perceived the service as innovative and useful.
- Users like to be able to have remote management of devices. o Saving money is the driving factor to purchase the product.
- The drawbacks were mainly the design of devices, the price of the equipment and the service and its credibility.

All these results show that the BeyWatch System is very relevant, from the different points of view. They also revealed, either by themselves or through the tests performed, some limitations, improvements, etc. which are a part of the lessons that the partners learnt from the project and gives also ideas for future works.

Lessons learned

Lessons learned from Beywatch can be derived both at the sub-system level, as well as about the Beywatch system as a whole. Finally, the achievements of the project also enable to draw some conclusions about the possible evolution of the Beywatch system during the next years. To be noted that all details about the lessons learned from the Beywatch project are fully described in the deliverable D64, available for download on the present website.

Beywatch sub-systems

The BeyWatch energy control and monitoring system is able to interconnect legacy/consumer electronic devices with a new generation of energy-aware white-goods in a common network, where multilevel hierarchic metering, control, and scheduling is applied, based on power demand, network conditions and personal preferences. By scheduling and controlling the electronic devices operation, BeyWatch minimizes power distribution peaks and helps to cope with intermittency of renewable generation (solar, wind), balancing energy load in power distribution networks and ultimately achieving predictable large-scale energy-consumption profiles. Moreover, BeyWatch integrates an innovative combined photovoltaic/solar (CPS) system, which provides: a) hot water for white goods (such as dishwasher, washing machine) in order to strongly decrease the energy consumption and the CO2 emissions at home by reducing/removing the heating operational cycles and b) generates electrical energy from Renewable Energy Sources (RES), which can be utilised at home, and during peak periods even fed to the electricity network in a reverse power generation/ distribution business model.

As shown, BeyWatch main subsystems include:

Energy aware white goods: A BeyWatch Washing Machine and a BeyWatch Dishwasher with ZigBee interfaces and energy/hot-water management capabilities and a BeyWatch Refrigerator with WiFi interface.
Combined Photovoltaic Solar (CPS) System: a BeyWatch CPS system, which provides hot water and electrical energy and is remotely controlled via a ZigBee interface
Metering modules (Smart meter & Watchers): Apart from metering modules embedded inside appliances, dedicated metering devices have been deployed as key components of BeyWatch architecture: one smart meter - at smart home scale - and a set of “watchers” (i.e. smart plugs).
Agent: a software subsystem hosted on a Residential Gateway (RG). The Agent incorporates a) the Home Energy Consumption Scheduler and optimizer, b) the Home Energy Framework and devices management and c) the Machine to Machine (M2M) communications interface.
Business Support Software: a web-based system software that enables information dissemination on energy consumption on a per customer basis. Besides the energy consumption information dissemination and statistical information, BSS is able to initiate a social network group on energy consumption and introduce an eco-game between energy prosumers of the same city or region.
Supervisor: a software subsystem that is responsible for smooth energy control and load balancing at neighbour level and preserving customers’ contract agreements.

Detailed technological achievements and the lessons learned from the various BeyWatch Subsystems are described in the deliverable D64.

Beywatch system as a whole

Apart from the technical achievements reached for each one of the subsystems that constitute the whole system, the Consortium has produced a platform which features:

Successful integration of heterogeneous low cost energy aware products. Decoupling M2M communications from the monitoring and control part makes energy management independent from the appliances controlled and from the communications technologies that would be used for a commercial service.
BeyWatch data models - Electricity Generation/Consumption models and simulations results are being shared with related projects as can be used as reference for further investigation and validation.
An elegant, not intrusive and very flexible approach for Demand Side Management (Supervisor – Agent architecture, API for contract instantiation variation) has been produced, which can be of great interest for energy distributors and retailers.
Clear insights on customer interests have been produced: Saving money, preserve the environment, get advantage of better contract conditions (being and ‘active’ part of the electricity system through the Agent installed at home), get access to real time information about consumption, obtain visual and understandable reports and comparisons on past consumptions, and be notified only if and when desired.

Business opportunities

For the telco

For Telefonica, the business opportunities of BeyWatch is to offer some of the components developed in BeyWatch to enrich its Service Delivery Platform with useful tools that enable the creation of energy efficiency related services. Possible customers of Telefonica for BeyWatch outcomes are:

Electricity retailers. Some of the BeyWidgets developed in the project can be offered to energy retailers, to help them in the creation of value added services portfolio, which allows them to compete for the end customer in the liberalized market and to promote and achieve efficiency at the same time.
Third party service providers willing to develop energy efficiency service for the end customers. The Service Delivery Platform can be used by Telefonica itself to provide services to its customers, but it is also open to Third Party Service Providers. It comprises many modules that offer functionalities that are shared by a variety of services from different sectors (utilities, retailers, logistics, transport, environment, e-health, residential, industrial, corporations…).
Telefónica itself, which populates its Service Delivery Platform with new service components that complement its service functionality offering for enterprise customers, and could offer simple energy efficiency services to its customers. The Service Delivery Platform is normally exploited in a B2B or B2B2C business models. The users of it are Telefónica customers, and cost of using the platform to provide end customer services can be fixed (monthly fee) or may depend on the usage (revenue shared model). In what regards the modules developed in BeyWatch, perhaps the most appropriate business model would be the B2B2C one in a revenue shared basis (Telefónica gives service to the electricity retailer, which offers final service to the electricity customer; a percentage of the monthly fee paid by the end customer to the retailer will go for Telefónica)

For the utility

Increasing the flexibility of the demand is a key point for the future electrical systems, both for the Transport and Distribution Networks and for the Production and associated retail. This flexibility may in particular help to cope with:

the peak loads on the grid, that are getting higher and higher every year, pushed by the continual increase of the global energy consumption and
the increasing but intermittent share of renewable generation means, either distributed (mostly photovoltaic) or centralized (mostly wind turbines).

It should be noticed that these two facts are much more related to power and to the time and period when power is demanded, than to energy. And that there is a gap between the commonly understood challenges in energy, often simply put as a reduction of energy consumption, whereas the flexibility of the power demand is a challenge at least as important but far less well understood, because power is more complex and even more difficult to represent and model well.

Dynamic tariffs such as on-peak/off-peak or Tempo tariffs have successfully existed for many years. Their success was directly linked to the flexibility of two main electricity uses: electrical heating and, overall, electrical hot water tank which is still playing a key role in the balance of the whole French electrical system.

In order to face the big challenge of the increasing peak loads and share of intermittent generation, the paradigm has to be revisited and new sources of flexibility have to be found. Fortunately, introducing the ICT in the grid and in the homes, leading to the so-called smartgrids and their “ends” - the smart homes - may help to achieve this objective . To do so, every home appliance has to be investigated, to identify what intrinsic flexibility in the energy use it may bring. These intrinsic flexibilities of the appliances were worked out in the BeyWatch project and classified into four categories: energy storage, external of internal heat provision, shifting possibilities, dimming possibilities. All these categories can be found in at least one of the appliances considered in BeyWatch.

The question was then how to “reveal” this flexibility, in order for the electrical system to be able to use it in a way that is acceptable to the user. This is where the ICT have a fundamental role: their integration in the white goods is the only way, because, while adopting a flexible energy use, the appliance has to perform continuously a close control of its operation and performance, and that can’t be done externally. As described in the above chapters, the BeyWatch project has shown that this integration is possible and can work, even if it leads to difficulties that have also been detailed and may sometimes lead to a partial or total re-conception of the whole appliance, in the same way as it was done for lowering their energy or water consumption. Some more work has probably to be done before having these functions in the appliances of the market, as well as trials with real users. It is also probable that some flexibility ideas haven’t been investigated yet and could be in the future, as for instance, for the refrigerator, the redistribution to the fridge compartment of the cold stored in the freezer compartment, which could, with a good level of insulation and doors kept closed, lead to an energy consumption only at night when power demand and cost of energy generation is lower, as for the hot water tanks.

Then, there are also some considerations related to the Agent, regarding its progressive deployment and its costs.

It is evident that such a complex smart system as the one considered in BeyWatch will not arrive in one shot in the homes. Instead, the appliances, that the customers mainly buy to renew their old one, will arise one by one in the homes. In the same idea, it has been seen above that the installation of a new hot water network in an existing home is complex and costly, which doesn’t allow to easily generalizing the BeyWatch principle of feeding the machines with hot water. This is why it is important to be able to use the flexibility of a single appliance in the home, in the simplest and cost effective way.
In such simple situations, which will certainly be much more than the complex ones in a short and middle term, the agent might not be mandatory: it would introduce extra complexity and extra cost difficult to justify. In such a case, the appliances should be smart enough in order to get from the smart meter the signals coming from the grid and to self-adapt to them. This would be a key need, taking into account the slow and progressive deployment of the smart appliances.
It is also clear that, when the situation gets more and more complex, the introduction of an agent should be possible and desirable. This means for the appliances the ability to operate either with or without the control of an agent. The agent is acting as a conductor in an orchestra: when there is only one or two players, his presence is useless, but when there are many appliances playing, then he must be there to coordinate and define the global optimization that none of the appliances may define by themselves.

Last, even this way, it can be expected that integrating the flexibility in the appliances lead to extra costs that are not seen as worth to buy for the customers. In order to initiate the move and allow positive business cases, it could be necessary to introduce in the regulation rules about the integration of the flexible energy use of the appliances, as it was done, for example, for their energy consumption, in operation or in standby mode.

For the appliances manufacturer

For Gorenje, as the manufacturer and distributor of household appliances, the business opportunities for marketing of the complete BeyWatch system, seem to be rather limited and far from its core business in terms of the specific means of managing-executing it.

But nevertheless, if reflected well enough, there exists a niche, which yet differs in its characteristics from appliance producer to appliance producer, depending on his overall philosophy, different market mentalities, historical reminiscences and actual reputation on the markets.

For Gorenje for instance, the western Balkans represents the market, which merges all characteristics listed above. This fact can be good exploited for introducing the novelty, as the BeyWatch system is with no doubt. On the one hand, Gorenje enjoys advantages of its excellent reputation and trust on this market, on the other hand, western Balkans are very fast developing societies, which long to join the developed Western Europe as soon as possible, and as such are very much acceptable for innovations also on the field of energy saving. Encountering these circumstances, Gorenje with no doubt could be the first successful initiator for establishing of the intelligent energy saving grids in this area, within promoting all of the partners from the BeyWatch project.

The next for Gorenje logical step from this point could be the promotion of BeyWatch way of energy saving into Ukraine and Russia.

For FAGOR the Business opportunities are focused on the deployment of connectivity solutions developed for the washing machine and the dishwasher to all other household appliances and develop a home control device, (a Fagor specific home gateway), in order to not only manage communications within the home but also allow connectivity with the outside world (via web services, …) with an architecture flexible enough, (supporting different operating systems, programming languages, graphical user interfaces,...) to allow the addition of new services for the home control:

Home automation network management service
Environmental Welfare service, keeping the home in optimum comfort conditions;
Remote diagnostics service, offering Fagor´s customers online diagnosis of their appliances;
Specific software updates Service;
Security and safety services, management of technical alarm as water, gas leaks, power cut off, etc., anti-theft systems,...;
Health care service, tracking the health of family members;
Nutrition and dietetics service, setting up a personalized weekly menu of a family, where the oven, refrigerator and data base supported by Fagor can play an important role.

For the softwares vendor

For Synelixis Solutions BeyWatch has been the initiative to move from the home network and smart home areas to the area of Energy Management. This huge market area is extended from the efficient energy consumption at Home to the smart grid domain. Since May 2011, a commercial contract of collaboration has been signed between Synelixis and Telefonica I+D for common exploitation of the Agent Platform. Moreover, Synelixis has established strategic collaborations with software vendors in Greece in order to exploit business opportunities in this area.

In more details, based on the technical role in the BeyWatch project, Synelixis has identified the following important lesson/results:

Agent Platform. Synelixis validated a number of hardware and software solutions for the BeyWatch Residential Gateway (including SW middleware and M2M physical interfaces), and has concluded to a powerful, flexible and low-cost solution, which could be directly exploited as a home energy management platform. The lesson learned is that in order to be future proof the M2M communication should be kept separate at least until a solution has become dominant or standardized.
Home Energy Consumption Scheduling Optimization (HECSO). Home energy consumption scheduling is a very complex multidimensional problem, which takes into account the various energy consumption profiles of the consumer electronic devices, the energy generation profiles e.g. based on photovoltaic cells or hot-water based on solar panels (taking into account also weather forecasts) and the various tariffs and business models applied by the utility companies.

For GL the BeyWatch project has provided the opportunity to develop a more accurate energy simulation and network modelling tool with an emphasis on smart appliances using renewable power. This has opened the opportunity for new consultancy work in the development of new energy networks and future enhancement of existing networks. In particular, GL is in the process of developing the following enhanced services to better address the requirements of our customers:

Energy Forecasting – accurate forecasting of energy demand from a combination of historical data, real-time data and associated scenarios stretching over several decades. This information is critical to the energy transporters and network operators as their efficient operation is highly dependent on accurate and reliable forecasts.
Network analysis tools – real time impact analysis of loads on energy networks to ensure reliable supply to the end user with optimized investment in the network infrastructure over the life of the asset.
Energy Model – a more comprehensive model incorporating commercial and industrial sectors could also be developed to provide a more realistic day-to-day application to handle more accurate load management. This could ease the adoption of smart tariff structures to benefit both the end user and the utilities.

Pontential areas for further research

This project has been dealing only with domestic premises and the next phase should address the incorporation of commercial and industrial buildings. The usage patterns and energy requirements of such premises are very different to domestic ones and the knowledge gained on such work would further enhance the global energy consumption/generation profiles. This would lead to a more realistic solution to provide carbon footprint reduction within the energy market thus meeting future EU and worldwide regulations on emissions.

The work undertaken by the BeyWatch project up to now has resulted in a complete system that enables the provision of energy management services in homes. It is based on some premises:

The house is provided with an intelligent home energy manager, the Agent, which gets requirements and data from different sources (utility – distributor or retailer, customer, weather conditions, historical consumption reports, forecasts of in-home micro-generation (electricity and hot water production), etc) to optimize the use of electricity and hot water in the without losing comfort.
The Agent is connected via Internet with a Supervisor, in charge of managing aggregated electricity consumption in a given geographical area (which could be a building, a neighborhood, or the homes supplied by the electricity distributor or retailer in the area).
The Agent is also connected with the smart electrical appliances in the home, which offer a monitoring and control interface that enables the Agent to make use of the o Producing energy (electricity and hot water generated by the PV and ST panels managed by a CPS system) o Storing energy (fridge-freezer) o Load shifting or (dishwasher, washing machine) o Energy dimming (electrical radiators) capabilities they may have, to control their operation in order to use electricity in an optimum way, minimizing the cost for the user.
BeyWatch system assumes that the utility company (energy retailer) models electricity price (through the tariff agreed with the customer in the contract or by agreeing on a contract that allow dynamic pricing) to drive the Agent in order to use electricity when it is more convenient: o To flatten power demand curve. o To guarantee stability of the electrical system. o And to cope with the integration of renewable and normally intermittent generation sources (wind turbines, solar plants).
Electricity consumption patterns for smart home appliances is known, and therefore the effect of replacing the existing normal appliances by new, more efficient and ICT enabled ones can be rehearsed, providing realistic data that might foster regulation and incentives for the adoption of this type of appliances (together with the energy management system able to get maximum benefit from them).
The electricity smart meter, connected to the intelligent Agent developed in BeyWatch, provides almost real time knowledge on power and electricity consumption in the home. Customer’s segmentation is possible based on this knowledge, energy management services can be personalized as well as the tariffs the retailer can offer to them.
The home user perceives energy management services as very innovative and attractive, and would be willing to subscribe theses services at a reasonable price (measured in terms of monetary saving and comfort capabilities they may bring over).
- Home users don’t want to be bothered with complex decisions on when and how use the home appliances, so they are comfortable with the concept of an intelligent Agent controlling non critic appliances for them.
- They value very well the educative component of an application that show power and energy consumption data in real time, sets the basis for comparison (what is a normal/abnormal consumption) and helps him with personalized suggestions to improve in the way electricity is consumed. Most of the former considerations would need to be adapted for industrial and commercial buildings, as electrical equipment existing in those buildings may offer many other possibilities for energy storage and load shifting or dimming. Moreover, the customer in those cases is very different from the residential customer, and it is normally more interested in saving money – even more in these cases as the potential for saving is much higher as it is also the consumption.

Another way of evolution of the work done in BeyWatch is in the interface between smart grids and smart homes. One of the main objectives of smart grids is the integration of renewables. Renewable energy has two characteristics that make its integration complex:

They are intermittent.
And unpredictable (at least with a high precision).

But the benefits they bring along are bigger that the difficulties they present, as these resources are unlimited and non-contaminant.

Changing the generation mix to increase the share of renewables implies not only the management of renewable generation plants but also the management of consumption (in the industry, businesses and private homes), and the tools that are (or will be available) to manage consumption in homes and buildings are:

Storage.
The integration and management of electric vehicles.
And the intelligent management of shifting loads.

The evolution of BeyWatch could in the future then:

Extend the Agent functionalities to benefit from the storage capabilities of appliances:
Particularize the Agent for the management of the charging of the electric vehicle. Electric vehicles will be (as well as combustion vehicles are) used normally during the day, and be parked during the night. For home users with a private garage at home, electric vehicle will be re-charge during the night to get benefit from a lower tariff and contribute to increase power demand during the ‘valley hours’, when for example, electricity production from wind use to be high and power demand from residential sector is lower. Even if the charge is done at night, it has to be performed in a managed manner, from a ‘charge manager’ that could command the start of the charge at the time it is more convenient for the utility. The charge manager could be also an evolution of BeyWatch Supervisor particularized for the coordinated management of electric vehicles – not all of them can be charged at the same time - their aggregated charging should raise power demand at night in such a manner that ideally power demand will be flat.
- BeyWatch system (Supervisor-Agent-BSS) could be then the seed for planning and specifying a coordinated system that integrates smart grids and smart homes:
- To drive storage in the homes, businesses and industries.
- Manage electric vehicles (storage too but also a movable and mobile load)
- And mange shiftable loads for all kind of buildings.

Comments

"ICTs as leverage technologies for energy efficiency"
Asunción Santamaría Universidad Politécnica de Madrid - CeDInt

"Very nice site!"
Pharm GE

"Red Eléctrica de España has a strong commitment with Demand Side Management and Energy Efficiency and fully supports this projects objectives"
Susana Bañares Hernandez Red Electrica de España

"As a utility company in Spain, we consider this project as an enormous contribution to solve the challenges that are faced with in this sector during the next century."
Antonio Castellanos ENDESA Network Factory

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ICT for sustainable homes

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