Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “volttron”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

VOLTTRON Modular Framework: Enabling flexible and scalable deployment solutions

VOLTTRON ™ is an open-source platform for distributed sensing and control. The platform provides services for collecting and storing data from buildings and devices and provides an environment for developing applications which interact with that data. The platform allows developers to build out their use cases by utilizing these frameworks and integrating new capabilities. To simplify the deployment of systems built on VOLTTRON, a new way of organizing the codebase is being explored. This document details these efforts through a new code repository layout for the VOLTTRON platform and services, and how this new layout provides targeted deployments using standard python deployment packages (wheels). In addition, this paper will discuss the development of third-party agents and how they can be integrated within the VOLTTRON ecosystem. Finally, we will discuss core platform development and direction for the modularized version of VOLTTRON.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

VOLTTRON Version 4

VOLTTRON™ is an agent execution platform providing services to its agents that allow them to easily communicate with physical devices and other resources. VOLTTRON™ delivers an innovative distributed control and sensing software platform that supports modern control strategies, including agent-based and transaction-based controls. It enables mobile and stationary software agents to perform information gathering, processing, and control actions. VOLTTRON™ can independently manage a wide range of applications, such as HVAC systems, electric vehicles, distributed energy or entire building loads, leading to improved operational efficiency.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2017

VOLTTRON Version 5.0

VOLTTRON is an agent execution platform providing services to its agents that allow them to easily communicate with physical devices and other resources. VOLTTRON delivers an innovative distributed control and sensing software platform that supports modern control strategies, including agent-based and transaction-based controls. It enables mobile and stationary software agents to perform information gathering, processing, and control actions. VOLTTRON can independently manage a wide range of applications, such as HVAC systems, electric vehicles, distributed energy or entire building loads, leading to improved operational efficiency.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2016

Volttron version 4

VOLTTRON™ is an agent execution platform providing services to its agents that allow them to easily communicate with physical devices and other resources. VOLTTRON™ delivers an innovative distributed control and sensing software platform that supports modern control strategies, including agent-based and transaction-based controls. It enables mobile and stationary software agents to perform information gathering, processing, and control actions. VOLTTRON™ can independently manage a wide range of applications, such as HVAC systems, electric vehicles, distributed energy or entire building loads, leading to improved operational efficiency.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2017

Volttron version 5.0

VOLTTRON is an agent execution platform providing services to its agents that allow them to easily communicate with physical devices and other resources. VOLTTRON delivers an innovative distributed control and sensing software platform that supports modern control strategies, including agent-based and transaction-based controls. It enables mobile and stationary software agents to perform information gathering, processing, and control actions. VOLTTRON can independently manage a wide range of applications, such as HVAC systems, electric vehicles, distributed energy or entire building loads, leading to improved operational efficiency.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2017

Home Energy Management System - VOLTTRON Integration

In most Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) available in the market, different devices running different communication protocols cannot interact with each other and exchange information. As a result of this integration, the information about different devices running different communication protocol can be accessible by other agents and devices running on VOLTTRON platform. The integration process can be used by any HEMS available in the market regardless of the programming language they use. If the existing HEMS provides an Application Programming Interface (API) based on the RESTFul architecture, that API can be used for integration. Our candidate HEMS in this project is home-assistant (Hass). An agent is implemented which can communicate with the Hass API and receives information about the devices loaded on the API. The agent publishes the information it receives on the VOLTTRON message bus so other agents can have access to this information. On the other side, for each type of devices, an agent is implemented such as Climate Agent, Lock Agent, Switch Agent, Light Agent, etc. Each of these agents is subscribed to the messages published on the message bus about their associated devices. These agents can also change the status of the devices by sending appropriate service calls to the API. Other agents and services on the platform can also access this information and coordinate their decision-making process based on this information.

Zandi, Helia↗
DOE OSTI2018

Keyless Infrastructure Security Solution (KISS): VOLTTRON™ KSI ® Blockchain Design and Specification

This document provides the technical design specifications that are required for Keyless Infrastructure Security Solution (KISS) development, including, definitions and roles of the new KISS-related products—GridAware and LinkLite—an overview of the DNP3 communications the VOLTTRON™ DNP3 agent is using for distribution control, data flow, historian processing, setup, and installation. These technical specifications provide step-by-step instructions for configuration, implementation, and deployment of the KISS subsystem, docket creation, and verification using the GridAware dashboard. Based on this document and the KISS specification requirements and device risk assessment documents, KISS will be developed by integrating keyless signature infrastructure (KSI) blockchain to increase the cybersecurity, integrity, and trustworthiness of critical energy delivery systems (EDSs). The KISS architecture consists of a VOLTTRON™ agent-based distribution control system platform and GridAware (KSI blockchain capability) for secure energy exchanges in a decentralized electrical network.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Implementation Plan for Combined Heat and Power Systems VOLTTRON Controller: Performance Monitoring and Real-Time Commissioning Algorithm Verification

Building-integrated cooling, heating, and power (CHP) systems are more efficient than conventional systems at providing local power and thermal energy, and favorable fuel prices are bound to spur their increased adoption. However, to realize the full benefit of the CHP systems, we must ensure persistence of energy efficient operations. Much of the inefficiency in the current building operations can be eliminated by use of automated performance monitoring (PM), real-time commissioning verification (CxV) and automated fault detection and diagnostic (AFDD) tools. Automation can help system operators make intelligent decisions. Remote and continuous monitoring of system conditions and performance will enable better management and integration of CHP with existing building systems. Continuous PM, real-time CxV, and AFDD could alleviate burdens for operations staff, enhance operations and maintenance (O&M), and improve reliability of building and CHP systems. To address the O&M challenges and to provide a means to maximize the rate-of-return of building-integrated CHP systems, the Building Technologies Office (BTO) within the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) initiated a project to design, develop, and field test a VOLTTRON™-based supervisory controller and associated open-source algorithms. These algorithms will ensure real-time optimal operation of a building-integrated CHP system, support electric grid reliability, and lead to achieving the goal of clean, efficient, reliable, and affordable next-generation integrated energy system. Previous report listed the components for which PM, real-time CxV, and AFDD algorithms will be developed, how the algorithms will be tested, and the metrics that will be used to validate the algorithms and their ease of deployment. Deployment of these algorithms in the field will result in a reduction in energy consumption of between 10% and 20% (for both CHP and conventional building systems). This report builds upon the previous report by detailing the process by which PNNL will implement performance monitoring and real-time commissioning algorithms for CHP systems in conjunction with the use of the VOLTTRON CHP economic dispatch agent in host facilities.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Secure Software Central-The VOLTTRON Case

The SSC work arose from VOLTTRON’s PNNL campus deployment and resulted in a Threat Profile containing critical assets, prioritized threats, and controls for mitigating those threats. The Threat Profile outlines controls already in place, controls not yet in place, and recommendations for implementing controls. As a companion to the software, the Threat Profile shows due diligence in cybersecurity risk management in terms of security requirements, security recommendations, security budgeting, justification, and prioritization. This report describes the SSC offerings in general and the specific offerings applied to VOLTTRON.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Home Energy Management System - VOLTTRON Integration

In most Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) available in the market, different devices running different communication protocols cannot interact with each other and exchange information. As a result of this integration, the information about different devices running different communication protocol can be accessible by other agents and devices running on VOLTTRON platform. The integration process can be used by any HEMS available in the market regardless of the programming language they use. If the existing HEMS provides an Application Programming Interface (API) based on the RESTFul architecture, that API can be used for integration. Our candidate HEMS in this project is home-assistant (Hass). An agent is implemented which can communicate with the Hass API and receives information about the devices loaded on the API. The agent publishes the information it receives on the VOLTTRON message bus so other agents can have access to this information. On the other side, for each type of devices, an agent is implemented such as Climate Agent, Lock Agent, Switch Agent, Light Agent, etc. Each of these agents is subscribed to the messages published on the message bus about their associated devices. These agents can also change the status of the devices by sending appropriate service calls to the API. Other agents and services on the platform can also access this information and coordinate their decision-making process based on this information.

Zandi, Helia↗
DOE OSTI2019

VOLTTRON-enabled Home Energy Management System

Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) consist of software and hardware systems that provide communication, control, and management among different electronic devices, such as heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. HEMS are a growing market sector in the era of smart grids and smart homes. HEMS can help both homeowners and utilities save money and energy by monitoring and controlling smart devices in a house. Based on the Department of Energy (DOE) Building Energy Data Book, 41% of the energy consumed in the United States is used by buildings (see Figure 1). This shows the importance of saving energy in the building sector. This report introduces two approaches that existing HEMS vendors can use to leverage VOLTTRON as their control and interoperability engine. The goal of this project is to make open-source, user-friendly HEMS available to the market so that everyone can benefit from them. The HEMS introduced as a result of this study should satisfy HEMS specifications such as device monitoring and control, seamless communication between devices, DR, intelligence, data management, and security.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

DER as a service-ecoLong and VOLTTRON (Abstract)

The project goal is to commercialize the VOLTTRON-hosted “DER as a Service” (DaaS) application and make it an “out-of-the-box” solution for ecoLong to use as a secure residential energy management system that allows 1.) distributed energy resources (DERs) to participate in wholesale markets and provide services to the grid and 2.) intelligently control the energy in the residential buildings to the desired level while maintaining occupancy comfort. The product will be field deployed onto multiple Solar Liberty sites in New York state to demonstrate wide-scale participation of DERs in wholesale markets to provide services to the grid and validate the effectiveness of the solution. The integrated management of DERs and buildings increases the penetration of solar resources by managing its variability, providing grid services, and solving the evening ramping challenges. Ultimately, the DaaS platform will make buildings and DERs smarter by unlocking grid-interactive efficient buildings.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2016

VOLTTRON: An Open-Source Software Platform of the Future

Buildings consume over 30% of the total primary energy consumed worldwide and contribute to a third of the world greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the US, buildings consume over 40% of total energy and contribute to almost 38% in GHG emissions. In addition, buildings in the US consume over 75% of electricity generated. The need to mitigate climate change is driving efforts to make the US generation cleaner, which has given new impetus for improving the operating efficiency of buildings at scale and increasing the hosting capacity of distributed renewable generation. Because these renewable generation technologies are variable in nature, they create significant short- and long-term imbalance between supply and demand.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Coordination and Control of Flexible Building Loads for Renewable Integration; Demonstrations using VOLTTRON

Renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power have a high degree of uncertainty. Large-scale integration of these variable generation sources into the grid is a big challenge for power system operators. Buildings, in which we live and work, consume about 75% of the total electricity in the United States. They also have a large capacity of power flexibility due to their massive thermal capacitance. Therefore, they present a great opportunity to help the grid to manage power balance. In this report, we study coordination and control of flexible building loads for renewable integration. We first present the motivation and background, and conduct a literature review on building-to-grid integration. We also compile a catalog of flexible building loads that have great potential for renewable integration, and discuss their characteristics. We next collect solar generation data from a photovoltaic panel on Pacific Northwest National Laboratory campus, and conduct data analysis to study their characteristics. We find that solar generation output has a strong uncertainty, and the uncertainty occurs at almost all time scales. Additional data from other sources are also used to verify our study. We propose two transactive coordination strategies to manage flexible building loads for renewable integration. We prove the theories that support the two transactive coordination strategies and discuss their pros and cons. In this report, we select three types of flexible building loads—air-handling unit, rooftop unit, and a population of WHs—for which we demonstrate control of the flexible load to track a dispatch signal (e.g., renewable generation fluctuation) using experiment, simulation, or hardware-in-the-loop study. More specifically, we present the system description, model identification, controller design, test bed setup, and experiment results for each demonstration. We show that coordination and control of flexible loads has a great potential to integrate variable generation sources. The flexible loads can successfully track a power dispatch signal from the coordinator, while having little impact on the quality of service to the end-users.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Remote Deployment and Setup of VOLTTRON Instances

The goal of this project is to increase the pool of people who can install and configure applications in the Intellimation platform. This will be accomplished with a joint development effort between Intellimation and PNNL to create a set of services to simplify the process for the onsite client as well as the Intellimation staff at a centralized location. Intellimation’s tagging capability, hosted in their cloud, will be leveraged to create an autoconfiguration process for selected PNNL applications such as Intelligent Load Control and AIRCX. The results of the configuration process will be sent to Intellimation field units which host the applications locally. This will allow these applications to be configured remotely and with greatly reduced effort on the part of Intellimation staff. Consequently, this will enable a greater usage of these applications and greater impact to energy efficiency than would be possible without this effort. The use of these newly developed services would allow Intellimation to reduce the cost of installation and allow them to offer the service to new and existing clients.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

VOLTTRON™ Agent Development for Enabling Reactive Power Support of Non-Utility DERs by Integrating Transactive Energy Approach

To enable better voltage regulation in power systems with high penetration of photovoltaics (PV) and other distributed energy resources (DERs), future inverters are required to provide reactive power support to the grid in addition to providing real power generated by PV panels. This paper develops a framework that coordinates the support from DER-based inverters, which are grid-connected non-utility assets, by using a transactive energy approach. Results of the implementation demonstrate participation of DER-based inverters can be achieved by using the coordination between distributed controllers and a centralized controller. With the transactive energy approach, both the customer and utility can achieve benefits that meet their individual needs.

Kritprajun, Paychuda↗
DOE OSTI2017

Building Energy Management Open Source Software

This is the repository for Building Energy Management Open Source Software (BEMOSS), which is an open source operating system that is engineered to improve sensing and control of equipment in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings. BEMOSS offers the following key features: (1) Open source, open architecture – BEMOSS is an open source operating system that is built upon VOLTTRON – a distributed agent platform developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). BEMOSS was designed to make it easy for hardware manufacturers to seamlessly interface their devices with BEMOSS. Software developers can also contribute to adding additional BEMOSS functionalities and applications. (2) Plug & play – BEMOSS was designed to automatically discover supported load controllers (including smart thermostats, VAV/RTUs, lighting load controllers and plug load controllers) in commercial buildings. (3) Interoperability – BEMOSS was designed to work with load control devices form different manufacturers that operate on different communication technologies and data exchange protocols. (4) Cost effectiveness – Implementation of BEMOSS deemed to be cost-effective as it was built upon a robust open source platform that can operate on a low-cost single-board computer, such as Odroid. This feature could contribute to its rapid deployment in small- or medium-sized commercial buildings. (5) Scalability and ease of deployment – With its multi-node architecture, BEMOSS provides a distributed architecture where load controllers in a multi-floor and high occupancy building could be monitored and controlled by multiple single-board computers hosting BEMOSS. This makes it possible for a building engineer to deploy BEMOSS in one zone of a building, be comfortable with its operation, and later on expand the deployment to the entire building to make it more energy efficient. (6) Ability to provide local and remote monitoring – BEMOSS provides both local and remote monitoring ability with role-based access control. (7) Security – In addition to built-in security features provided by VOLTTRON, BEMOSS provides enhanced security features, including BEMOSS discovery approval process, encrypted core-to-node communication, thermostat anti-tampering feature and many more. (8) Support from the Advisory Committee – BEMOSS was developed in consultation with an advisory committee from the beginning of the project. BEMOSS advisory committee comprises representatives from 22 organizations from government and industry.

Source record↗