A Testbed for Agent Oriented Smart Grid Implementation

The aim of this paper is to present a platform for helping agent researchers to become familiar with Smart Grids. Agent technology has been recognised as one of the enablers for Smart Grids. A Smart Grid intends to make an advanced use of available metering and generation capabilities in order to use more efficiently the electricity. Contributions of agent resea1rchers to this domain are still reduced and this may be because of the highly specialised knowledge that is required to run current Smart Grid simulators and the cost of commercial ones. This paper aims to share the experience acquired during a project where distributed control approaches were devised using open source solutions. An important result is a simulator for Smart Grids that facilitates the research of how agents can operate such grids. This paper introduces an example case study and discusses how agents can be applied in these situations.