A new VPP algorithm: The KIFLIN project

Great news - FlexMeasures receives another scheduling algorithm, which is more suitable for VPP (Virtual Power Plant) applications. It has been developed by TNO earlier, and the transfer into FlexMeasures is part of another R&D project.

In short, it is a dynamic programming approach, which sets a goal to flexibly divert a fleet of assets from its aggregated consumption and then asks all assets to add contributions to this goal until it is reached. This is a different approach to the existing storage scheduler in FlexMeasures, which does a good job on a site-level with economic optimization.

In the R&D project (called "KIFLIN") we will work on the seamless integration of that algorithm into FlexMeasures' existing strengths - namely giving software developers a robust tool to build energy services. The way APIs and UIs work should be the same, no matter which of the schedulers you choose to use.

Nicolas spoke about this collaboration at the LF Energy summit in Brussels recently (5 Sep). This project is special for several reasons:

- it can be seen as a win-win between past and future R&D projects, by transferring knowledge into a more re-usable form. FlexMeasures gets an algorithm donated which was developed by TNO - this is the aspect highlighted in the lightning talk below (~10 minutes)
- it will progress S2 standard implementation in FlexMeasures and also a heat pump ORM (Itho Daalderop) is on board - S2 is an exciting open standard for assets and EMS to exchange information on what is possible w.r.t. energy flexibility.
- FlexMeasures will get (even nicer) tutorials for other organizations to get started with using it as HEMS

Looking forward to working on this! 🥸 🎉 KIFLIN is an R&D project funded by TKI Urban Energy. It was also mentioned last week at FlexCon2024 by Mente Konsman and Wilco Wijbrandi ("Unlocking flexibility from heat pumps with S2 in practice").