Aduriz Energía – Explotation and decision support system for energy purchasing based on Big Data

Technological solution capable of analyzing the necessary data from the energy market and forecasting energy demand, providing a support system for decision making and, in this way, adapting to new market niches and increasing its competitiveness.

CLOUD COMPUTING | BIG DATA | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | PREDICTIVE MODELING | DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

INDUSTRIAL STARTING POINT

The project arises from the need of ADURIZ ENERGIA SLU as an energy marketing SME, located in the Merindades (Burgos), to position itself in the field of intelligent energy supply to the rural population.

The changing regulations, the national energy shortage and the generation of an energy market where there is daily competition for the price of energy with large companies, led Aduriz Energía to consider having effective tools for analyzing energy demand, to optimize decision making, avoiding cost overruns due to excess or shortage in its energy purchase operations.

This tool should be based on four key factors of the Spanish energy market:

network access toll
the price of electricity on the day-ahead market
other system costs
the marketer’s margin.

In addition, the growth of new customers for this SME meant working with a greater number of data sources on a daily basis, which were impossible to analyze and evaluate on a continuous basis.

In conclusion, the SME needed a technological solution capable of analyzing the necessary data, both from the energy market and the demand forecast of its customers, and to provide a support system for decision making that would allow it to adapt to new market niches and increase its competitiveness.

SOLUTION

Aduriz Energía agreed to count on the collaboration of ITCL to develop a technological solution, focused on achieving an intelligent resource planning tool, capable of satisfying an energy purchase with guarantees, avoiding arbitrary decisions that do not adjust to the potential demand of customers.

Figure 1. Prototype proposed for Audriz Energía

The objective was to limit the uncertainty so that the cost of energy associated with a domestic consumption installation would correspond directly to the retailer’s invoicing.

Figure 2. Self-consumption system

The solution approach had to prioritize two key issues:

Smart metering in homes, to be able to generate personalized pricing and real-time control of consumption for each user.
Billing system adapted to new energy demand scenarios with significant uncertainty.

The development was based on the design and programming of a series of tools based on Industry 4.0 technologies to generate an integral control of Aduriz’s energy commercialization process, integrating purchase optimization factors, demand forecasting and the end user’s active behavior.

Figure 3. Diagram of the situation

IMPLEMENTATION

The implementation of the solution was carried out in several milestones, based on a first preparatory phase:

Determination of functionalities required by the prototype and necessary tools.

And a series of successive activities in the implementation of the solution:

Development of models for energy prediction based on modeling techniques.
Development of the BigData system and capture / processing of data obtained in real time.
Development of the data visualization system and system interaction interfaces.
Providing the prototype with energy prediction rules.
Development and testing of the self-management and decision making tool.
Testing and validation of the system

ROLE OF ITCL

Technical collaboration: Model design and algorithm development, integration with Big Data platform. Prototype testing and validation.
Partner for obtaining public funding for the project. ITCL’s OTRI was in charge, in cooperation with Aduriz, of preparing a viable proposal for obtaining public funding for the project, and for cost optimization. The project was submitted to the line of aid for R&D projects of the Junta de Castilla y León.

CHALLENGES FACED

Design the system to support decision making in the purchase of energy, based on sources of information predetermined by Aduriz, integrated in a BigData platform, so that decision making is the most appropriate in real time, guaranteeing the supply, with the maximum benefit and without reducing the quality of service (QoS).
Provide the system with the necessary intelligence to generate the best tariff offer according to each daily time slot, based on the marginal cost.
Introduce key parameters into the system, such as the option to negotiate in intra-day markets, where missing or surplus energy can be bought or sold.
Generate algorithms capable of predicting and learning from demand trades with a minimum horizon of 24 hours, so that the prediction models should predict the energy to be purchased by reducing the over- or under-buying.
Implementation of the models in Big Data platform and facilitate the scaling of the system.
Develop a suitable interface to facilitate the integration of data sources, and execute decision making.
Generation of a real-time visualization system of the system data: consumption, supply, readings, incidents and tools for the inclusion of the end user as an active part.
Integration with remote metering systems.

IMPROVEMENTS ACHIEVED

Aduriz has successfully implemented a management system based on the developed prototype, under the concept of “Big Energy Data”, capable of managing and analyzing all the data to be controlled from the necessary sources in real time, and that also allows him today:

Manage in a much more efficient way its commercialization and self-consumption business, under a proprietary decision support system.
Efficiently predict consumption by day and time, to reduce operating costs, through a system that learns from itself and is increasingly perfect.
Improve the company image, personalization and quality of its services, integrating through the developed tools, the profile of each customer in the structure and operation of its business.

PARTICIPATING COMPANIES AND PROFILE

Evalue Innovation: Partner specialized in optimization on the tax deduction of project costs.

DATA OF INTEREST:

In addition to the results of reducing energy purchase costs and improving its turnover, Aduriz was also successful financially:

The grant obtained by the company for the “Decisiones” proposal of the Junta de Castilla y León, processed with the support of ITCL, was 45% non-refundable of the total cost of the project, which included mainly costs of Aduriz’s own personnel dedicated to the project, and external collaborations, such as that of ITCL. In this regard, it should be noted that the initial percentage of aid awarded (35%) was increased by 10 additional points for the participation in the project of an officially recognized Technology Center.

As a result of the qualification of the project as “R&D activity”, Aduriz also obtained, with the collaboration of ITCL and Evalue, the possibility of applying tax incentives and bonuses for the costs attributed to the project, which it successfully achieved.

This allowed Aduriz to drastically reduce the final cost of the developed solution.

Duration: 18 months (2016 – 2018)