Holonic Energy Management Systems: Towards Flexible and Resilient Smart Grids

The increasing global warming and soaring fossil fuel prices have made energy generation minimization a crucial objective. As a result, the relevance of smart grids has significantly grown, especially in the context of regulating energy demand based on available resources. This necessitates the implementation of Demand Side Management (DSM) tools for effective regulation. While various models and architectures have been developed for smart grids, the utilization of holonic architectures remains limited in existing literature. In this paper, we propose a holonic architecture specifically tailored for smart grids, which proves to be highly advantageous. Holonic architectures are particularly valuable in smart grids as they enable seamless operation among different actors, even during technical challenges. Our proposed model consists of interconnected agents forming holons, with five agents working in tandem to ensure flexibility across multiple aspects. We have tested this model in three different scenarios. The first scenario represents a healthy grid. The second scenario simulates a grid with production mismanagement. Lastly, the third one simulates a grid experiencing a region-specific blackout. Results show how the grid distributes the available energy depending on the available production, storage (if any) and the assurance of the distribution across the various requesting holons.