Contribution to Modeling Smart Grid Problem with the Constraint Satisfaction Problem Formalism

Abstract

Smart Grids are electricity distribution networks that use intelligent IT methods to match the adequacy between consumer demand and provider offer (electric power plants and various clean energy sources such as wind turbines and solar panels). Smart Grids are derived from the fact that the use of electricity is not stable throughout the day. There are schedules where the use of electricity remains minimal, and others the opposite. Hence the need to optimize the use of electricity. In silence periods (work), solar panels or wind turbines will be enough to power the small number of devices that are running. The modeling of these networks using computer methods is a rather complex task, due to the large amount of informations offered by these networks and their complexity. Especially since it consists of multiple levels: i) the local level (house, building), ii) the microgrid level (the intermediate between locals and the third level) and iii) the level of transmission and distribution. But a mathematical solution can solve this kind of problem.Among the concepts, modeling such problem mathematically is the CSP (for Constraint Satisfaction Problem). In this paper we propose a CSP modeling of the local level of the Smart Grid problem. The results show the effectiveness of our contribution.