How Artificial Intelligence (AI) is driving the smart home and preventing the grid from congestion. How does smart control really works and what values does it bring? How can energy efficiency and residential comfort go hand in hand? How is this visualized to the different stakeholders. What's the role of the Smart Home in Smart Grids and how do they interoperate? How are operations and service quality guaranteed? Stefan Lodeweyckx | CEO | Enervalis

1. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.

2. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
How AI is driving the smart home
Stefan Lodeweyckx – CEO & Founder - Enervalis

3. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
THE AI SPECTRUM … popular early known

4. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
THE AI SPECTRUM … future?

5. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
AI: a DIVERSE spectrum

6. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
• Moore’s law
• Big data
• IoT
AI: key enablers

7. Webportal
Cloud CloudUSEF partners Buildings
Heat Pump …
Water
buffer
Ventilation
Energy
storeage
…
PV-
installation
AI to energy reality: High Level Overview

8. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
• Various “AI”:
– Forecast consumption, production, flex, comfort
– Recommendations
– Optimal control towards multi-objectives (save, local, aggr)
– Multi-level control: device, house, group
• Zoom in on Heat pump DHW for Energy Efficiency
“Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning for Modelling
and Control of Thermostatically Controllable Loads”
AI: REnnovates approach

9. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
• Rule-based control
– Requires only (crude) sensing of the environment
• Model predictive control
– Prevalent approach
– Mostly uses a prior model of system dynamics
• Reinforcement learning
– Assume no prior model of system dynamics exists
– End-to-end learning is still limited by sensing concerns
• NEW: Agency as a substitute for sensing, domain
knowledge or observation time
Control techniques for energy efficiency

11. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
• A multi-agent system gains a statistically significant
jumpstart as a result of transfer
Results – learning in the wild
Single agent
system starts
here
Multi agent
system starts
here

12. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
• A multi-agent system also displays statistically significant
improvement in asymptotic performance as a result of
transfer
Results – learning in the wild
Single agent
system ends here
Multi agent
system ends here

13. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.

14. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
A user comfort “safety net”

15. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
Empiric validation

16. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
• Yearly energy savings on DHW
– 230 kWh / house (18%)
• Hot water volume outside comfort boundaries
– 1.3%
• Yearly energy savings on spatial heating
– 130 kWh /house (8%)
Key results

17. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
End User information

18. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
Recommendation widget

19. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
HOUSE FLEX examples

20. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.

21. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
Forecast vs actual district battery

22. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
Flex energy overview

23. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
Solar self consumption
Coordinated control of DHW and home batteries
Maximize instantaneous use of local solar production: up till 250kWh/y/h = 20%+

24. 24

25. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
1M smart ZOM homes:
• 350 GWh/y savings (= 100K usual families!)
• Min 60.000 Mton CO2/y avoided
AI has real potential: Energy efficiency example

26. Project co-funded by the European Commission in the H2020 Programme.
Supporting the green energy transition …
Stefan.lodeweyckx@enervalis.com