At FOSDEM 2026, there was an energy devroom again (4th time!). This time, we got to present a proof-of-concept of Community Energy Management.
You can see the talk here (and the slides are on the talk page):
Community energy management systems (CEMS) are a hot topic. A CEMS makes sure that an energy community (of households and/or SMEs) behaves in a concerted way (to the grid, to a flex market).
For our approach with FlexMeasures, we made a design choice (which I also explain in the talk): We decided to keep buildings as autonomous as possible.
FlexMeasures is built for making buildings orchestrate their assets. We decided to keep that aspect in FlexMeasures – and when FlexMeasures also acts as a CEMS, it will not dictate each and every asset what to do, but will signal the problematic time slots and ask the local building HEMS (also FlexMeasures in our PoC, can be different ones later) to recompute their schedules.
The language for this nudging are prices. This can also mean that in principle other HEMS could be in the mix.
The energy devroom – Photo by Nico Rikken
This work is currently being worked out in the “FleXeD” project with (among others) TNO. The specific motivation for FleXeD is that new neighbourhoods do not get approved unless it can be shown that the connections can collectively stay below a given capacity limit.
If you have questions about these presented topics, do make sure to contact us.
