DELTA Glossary
Below are a list of terms and phrases which are central to the DELTA project. Many of the acronyms and terms are used in different fields, so highlighting their relevance to DELTA is important for our stakeholders. As the project develops and matures, so too will this list.
Aggregator
Legal entities that aggregate the load or generation of various demand and/or generation/production units and aim at optimizing energy supply and consumption.
Blockchain
A blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. Blockchains are readable by the public and are widely used by cryptocurrencies.
BMS (Building Management System
A building management, system otherwise known as a building automation system (BAS), is a computer-based control system installed in buildings that controls and monitors the building’s mechanical and electrical equipment such as ventilation, lighting, power systems, fire systems, and security systems. A BMS consists of software and hardware.
BRP (Balance Responsible Party)
A market participant or its chosen representative responsible for its imbalance to help the power system to be balanced and financially responsible for the imbalances to be settled with the connecting transmission system operator.
DER (Distributed Energy Resources)
Electricity producing resources, storage systems or controllable loads that are directly connected to a local distribution system or connected to a host facility within the local distribution system. DERs can include solar panels, combined heat and power plants, electricity storage, small natural gas-fueled generators, electric vehicles and controllable loads, such as HVAC systems and electric water heaters.
DR (Demand Response)
A change in the power consumption of an electric utility customer to better match the demand for power with the supply that is exercised following a market offer or incentive. Can be distinguished by explicit DR, which is a committed, dispatchable flexibility that can be traded on energy markets (incentive-driven), or implicit DR, which is the consumer’s reaction to price signals (price-based).
DSO (Distribution System Operator)
A natural or legal person responsible for operating, ensuring the maintenance of and, if necessary, developing the distribution system in a given area and, where applicable, its interconnections with other systems and for ensuring the long-term ability of the system to meet reasonable demands for the distribution of electricity.
DVN (DELTA Virtual Node)
An aggregated, virtual cluster of prosumers which will be perceived and acted upon as a single, large prosumer entity by the Aggregator. Prosumers entailed into each Virtual Node will have common characteristics, defined by their corresponding Aggregator.
DVNP (DELTA Virtual Node Platform)
DVNP is the collective of all Virtual Nodes along with the tools for their optimal management, including the prosumer flexibility monitoring and profiling, optimal dispatch of generation/consumption, load forecasting, intra/inter node energy matchmaking. The DVNP will also support inter-node communication and intervention. Additionally, innovative customer engagement tools, such as a DR visualization Kit and a Collaboration Platform will be included as well.
EMS (Energy Management System)
A system of computer-aided tools used by operators of electric utility grids to monitor, control, and optimize the performance of the generation and/or transmission/distribution system. It can cover the entire interconnected grid or sections of it.
ESCO (Energy Service Company)
A commercial or non-profit business providing a broad range of energy solutions including designs and implementation of energy savings projects, retrofitting, energy conservation, energy infrastructure outsourcing, power generation and energy supply and risk management. Investments are raised through the achieved savings.
FEID (Fog Enabled Intelligent Device)
An intelligent device, responsible for collecting information stemming from the field devices (home appliances, distributed energy resources, storage components etc.) to the DELTA Virtual Nodes and facilitate end-to-end communication of signals from/to the Aggregator and to/from the field devices. FEIDs will be equipped with smart meters measuring energy related data (e.g. consumption, generation, emissions, power coefficient, etc.) and through an intelligent lightweight toolkit compute real-time flexibility, providing them as input to the DVN Agent using fog computing techniques, aligned to a strategy (i.e. time interval) imposed to the specific Node by the Aggregator.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
Is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) covering the export of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas as well.
HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning)
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the technology of indoor and vehicular environmental comfort. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality.
IoT (Internet of Things)
The network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators and connectivity which enables these things to connect and exchange data.
LCE (Low Carbon Emissions)
Human activity that uses as a primary source sustainable resources that do not emit carbon bi-products such as CO2.
M2M (Machine to Machine)
Direct communication between devices using any communications channel, including wired and wireless, that includes systems of networks that transmits data to personal appliances.
MAS (Multi Agent System)
A system composed of several virtual intelligent software agents which interact with each other. In the DELTA Framework, each Virtual Node would be represented by its corresponding Agent, responsible for communicating with its adjacent Agents and, along with the information coming from the FEIDs within each Node, facilitate the intra/inter Node energy matchmaking to deliver optimal energy balance.
Prosumer
A person who both produces and consumes electricity.
PV (Photovoltaic)
A term which covers the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry.
RES (Renewable Energy Systems)
Energy derived from resources that are regenerative or for all practical purposes cannot be depleted. Renewable energy, also called alternative energy, is generally thought of as an alternative to conventional energy usually supplied by the combustion of fossil fuel such as oil, coal or natural gas.
SSN (Smart Sensor Network)
A group of spatially dispersed and dedicated smart sensors for monitoring and recording the physical conditions of the environment and organizing the collected data at a central location. In DELTA, such a network will be established through the introduced FEIDs into the prosumers’ premises.
TSO (Transmission System Operator)
This is an entity entrusted with transporting energy in the form of natural gas or electrical power on a national or regional level, using fixed infrastructure.
VPP (Virtual Power Plant)
A cloud-based distributed power plant that aggregates the capacities of heterogeneous Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) for the purpose of optimising their aggregate use, as well as trading or selling power on the open market.