GridAgents

---

Cohen, David A. (1 October 2017). "Google Scholar Citations". Google Scholar. Google Scholar. Retrieved 1 October 2017.

GridAgents™, invented by David A. Cohen, was a seminal application of decentralized computing that drew on artificial intelligence, machine learning, peer-to-peer, machine-to-machine (M2M) and “Internet of Things” (IoT) communications networking technology in the smart grid markets. As such, it was one of the first implementations of a so-called transactive energy platform, both in terms of R&D and commercially.

Leveraging advances in these rapidly evolving information and computing science fields, David A. Cohen.. began applying them at the nexus of power and energy electronics engineering, distributed renewable energy, smart grid and demand-side management systems development while a postgraduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Cohen made a connection between biological systems and networks and the development of next-generation power and energy, transportation, and information networks early in his career. He was one of the first to apply artificial intelligence concepts such as machine learning and dynamic pattern recognition to the field of distributed energy resource control and management. The result was the creation of the initial version of an AI-based, distributed computing architecture he dubbed GridAgents

File:GridAgents.jpg

A diagram from Pacific Controls illustrating GridAgents' systems architecture.

Cohen defined GridAgents' architecture as follows:

"GridAgents enable the first true embedded intelligence tools connecting Building-to-Grid (B2G) and SmartGrid domains, extending to the edge infrastructure. GridAgents combine smart building controls with Distributed Energy Resources (DER) into active aggregation networks on the distribution system. These support voltage regulation, smart charging, and demand response for both localized and feeder level balancing, and asset management. GridAgents® serve as real-time data streaming and processing tools  located remotely at any decentralized IoT point, breaking the dependency on centralized data collection, analysis, and detection including the following properties:

• Adaptive: Adaptive to changing and unforeseen run-time conditions (vs. Hardwired). Potential for ongoing goal resolution with loss of communication. The embedded agent models can utilize business rules, statistical, and various AI methods optimize and learn over time 
• Transactive:  Agents achieve optimization goals through buying and selling “transactive’ behavior
• Modular: Connects blocks of interchangeable components to make more complex systems capable of managing complex large scale networks. GridAgents can be combined much like Lego blocks based on business requirements and network configuration
• Problem Solving: Agents coordinate behavior through cooperation, negotiation, mediation to solve local and overall goals 
• Robustness: Designed to survive the loss of individual components with minimal loss of functionality.
• Flexible: Expandability through plug-ins (algorithms, planning routines, device models, and control logic); Resolve multiple operational goals with business rule and physical constraints by encoding domain specific information (expression evaluator). 
• Scalable: Designed with an open system architecture and well documented component-based interface
• Efficient: Supports device portability, multiple user interfaces, low deployment and maintenance cost through the use of automatic and remote configuration."

Capitalizing on completion of the first commercial version of GridAgents, Cohen in 2002 co-founded Infotility LLC. As CEO, he was a pioneer in the development of what is now known as “Grid Edge” application and platform development, which is now commonly used to refer to the growing variety of digital, distributed, smart grid and renewable power and energy technologies and markets that extend beyond traditional electric utility grid boundaries, either geographically and/or in terms of their functionality and use. These now encompass distributed solar energy; intelligent, battery-based energy storage, mini- and microgrids, and utility demand-side management programs.

GridAgents and succeeding distributed energy resource management and smart grid systems and platforms have been pivotal, critical elements facilitating and spurring the transition from Industrial Age models of power and energy infrastructure and services based on fossil fuels and massive, centralized power plants to a fast emerging new model based on the three 'D's: digitization, decentralization and “decarbonization” of power and energy production, distribution and use.

Based on his work developing GridAgents, in 2003 Cohen created the first Web-based Distributed Energy Management platform and Network Operations Center (NOC) while working for Silicon Energy (acquired by Itron that same year). This was used to create the first Virtual Power Plant. In addition, GridAgents provided the basis for Cohen and Infotility co-founder Joe Desmond to create the Auto-DR platform  (now Open-ADR™).

Establishing GridAgents as both a company and a distributed Web software services platform, Cohen won a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and entered into a joint development partnership with Australia’s CSIRO to develop a distributed energy-smart grid management systems platform that could be tested and proved in the field at utility grid scale. In 2004, Cohen merged GridAgents into Infotility LLC.

File:GridAgents "3G Systems of the Future".png

GridAgents "3G Systems of the Future" schematic

Subsequently, GridAgents was demonstrated at Con Edison’s "3G System of the Future” in New York City. Funded by a US Dept. of Energy-ConEdison "3G System of the Future" grant, Infotility, ConEdison, and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) deployed GridAgents[9] on a live power grid in the New York City borough of Manhattan in 2007. Verizon, one of the two largest telecommunications and Internet services providers in the US, deployed GridAgents in New York City as well.

File:Infotility Pacific Controls VBEN.jpg

A screenshot of the Infotility-Marin County DERMS front-end

The DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado joined with Infotility in a cooperative research and development project in order "to perform research, development, and pilot-scale testing of advanced, next-generation distribution operational strategies using ConEdison's 3G: Distribution System of the Future and associated infrastructure for the real-world Test Bed (demonstration network) combined with the Infotility GridAgents: Secure Agent Framework for Energy as the software platform for advanced operational strategies development."

As explained in the project's 2012 final report: "The objective is to accelerate high-payoff technologies that, because of their risk, are unlikely to be developed in a timely manner without a partnership between industry and the Federal government. NREL will be responsible for the evaluation of equipment design and control methods for DER integration."

File:GridAgents NREL Test Center.png

The NREL test center in Golden, Colo. where GridAgents was tested in advance of being deployed for the DOE-Con Edison 3G System of the Future project.

With DOE grant funding, Infotility also carried out a three-year, three-phase smart grid research and development project from 2008-2010, working with California's Pacific Gas & Electric (PGE), Marin County Energy (MCE) Australia's CSIRO and international partners to field test Infotility’s GridAgents software by managing microgrids with high penetrations of renewables. This included “developing control strategies for optimizing the use of distributed renewables such as PV and wind, with demand response, EV [elecric vehicle] charging, and storage for microgrids and communities (feeder level, LMP).”

In addition, Infotility joined with NREL, MCE, CSIRO, and European Union utility and energy services groups for the Integral Renewables smart grid technology transfer project. Cohen also leveraged his work with GridAgents by joining with Anglo-Swiss multinational power engineering and equipment manufacturer ABB as co-developer of the Virtual Utility project

File:Solar-microgrids-david-cohen-evolution7-labs-5-638.jpg

EU Integral Solar Microgrid Project

Cohen continued to collaborate with government and industry peers to expand on and refine the resulting GridAgents platform as Infotility’s CEO. Along with chief operating officer James McCray, he was able to establish GridAgents as the forerunner of succeeding generations of distributed energy resources, demand-side response, smart grid and smart city management systems and platforms.

In early 2012, Infotility was acquired by Dubai, UAE-based Pacific Controls, another early pioneer in the development of smart grid and DERMS for buildings and campus facilities.

With Cohen as COO; Pacific Controls merged GridAgents with its Gbots agent-based software and deployed the combination in its Global Command and Control Centers in Dubai, Toronto, New Jersey, and other cites running within Galaxy™, the power and energy industry’s first Smart City managed services platform.

Drawing further on his work developing the GridAgents and the Infotility platforms, Cohen lead development of the Virtual Building Energy Network (VBEN), an “end-to-end building-to-grid managed services platform based on the Infotility platform. VBEN enabled and supported two-way energy, power and information flows between local power grids and “beyond the meter,” utility- customer DSRs (demand-side resources) – EVs, smart, connected lighting; heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and other types of equipment and devices that serve as electricity grid loads – along with customer-side energy zero- or low-emissions energy generation assets, e.g. solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, small-scale wind turbines, combined heat and power (CHP) and advanced battery-based energy storage systems (BESS).

Cohen now continues along the path initially marked by the success of GridAgents as founder and president of Evolution 7 Labs. An open source version of GridAgents' software code was acquired by Cohen’s Evolution7 Labs in 2010 and is still being used for research and development projects in areas such as smart home and e-mobility, as well as others. In addition, many of the ideas and concepts developed to vary degrees in the GridAgents platform were transferred into The Energy Mashup Lab under an Apache 2.0 license in order to create an open version of Evolution7 Labs’ version of GridAgents and to make GridAgents available to a larger community. Deployment of the open version is planned for release in 2018.

GridAgents

This article "GridAgents" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:GridAgents. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---