Intelligent Load Control (ILC) Agent

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ILC supports traditional demand response as well as transactive energy services. ILC manages controllable loads while also mitigating service-level excursions (e.g., occupant comfort, minimizing equipment ON/OFF cycling) by dynamically prioritizing available loads for curtailment using both quantitative (deviation of zone conditions from set point) and qualitative rules (type of zone).

Requirements

• python >= 3.10
• volttron >= 10.0
• sympy >= 1.12
• transitions >= 0.9.0

Documentation

More detailed documentation can be found on ReadTheDocs. The RST source of the documentation for this agent is located in the "docs" directory of this repository.

ILC Agent Configuration

The ILC agent, requires four configuration files per device cluster (i.e., homogenous set of devices). These files should be loaded into the agent's config store via vctl config command line interface. Samples of these files may be found in the sample_configs directory of this repository:

1. config - ILC (main) configuration.
2. control_config - Contains information related to the control of device cluster.
3. criteria_config - Contains information related to the use of real time data to prioritize devices within cluster for load management.
4. pairwise_criteria.json - Contains information related to the relative importance of each criteria for a device cluster.

Full documentation of ILC configurations can be found on ReadTheDocs. A web-based configuration tool has been developed to simplify creation of the configuration files for ILC. The web tool can be accessed here.

Instructions for the configuration web-tool can be found here.

Installation

Before installing, VOLTTRON should be installed and running. Its virtual environment should be active. Information on how to install of the VOLTTRON platform can be found here.

Install and start the Intelligent Load Control Agent.

vctl config store ilc.agent config <path of config file>
vctl config store ilc.agent control_config <path to device_control_config>
vctl config store ilc.agent criteria_config <path to device_criteria_config>
vctl config store ilc.agent pairwise_criteria.json <path to pairwise_criteria_config>
vctl install volttron-ilc --vip-identity ilc.agent --tag ilc --start

View the status of the installed agent

vctl status

Development

Please see the following for contributing guidelines contributing.

Please see the following helpful guide about developing modular VOLTTRON agents