Experimental implementation of a context-aware prosumer
Abstract This paper reports an experimental implementation of a flexible prosumer that adapts its behavior according to occupants’ objectives and system operator’s request. Model predictive control is incorporated into an existing building energy management system such that the energy management system can achieve user-defined objectives while quantifying energetic flexibility to support a stable and efficient system operation. Context-awareness is demonstrated through a series of experiments with energy efficiency, cost reduction, and carbon footprint reduction as occupants’ objectives. Besides, the flexibility of the prosumer is quantified in real-time and communicated to system operators. The results show occupants’ comfort and preference can be sufficiently guaranteed. Moreover, the flexibility quantification shows that the energy management system has considerable impacts on the levels of available flexibility.