Illuminator

The Illuminator is an easy-to-use Energy System Integration Development kit to demystify energy system operation, illustrate challenges that arise due to the energy transition and test state-of-the-art energy management concepts. we utilise Raspberry Pis as the individual components of the energy system emulator, and the simulation engine is based on Mosaik.

Contact/Support

• This project is supported by TU Delft PowerWeb and Stichting 3E.
• For more comprehensive support, please contact us at illuminator@tudelft.nl. Additionally, you can reach out to the main contributors for specific inquiries: Aihui Fu: A.Fu@tudelft.nl Dr.ir. Milos Cvetkovic: M.Cvetkovic@tudelft.nl

The Illuminator setup in short

The setup consists of one leader RasPi and several follower RasPis. The leader RasPi has permission to access and control the follower RasPis through Secure Shell Protocol (SSH). Once we set the simulation configuration, the leader RasPi will engage the follower RasPis to run the specified simulators. During the simulation, the information will be exchanged between RasPis via socket connection. The leader RasPi shows the results through Dashboard and saves the results to a ’.csv’ file for later analysis. Since the Illuminator is Python based, this code can also run on regular machines(PC). If you run the Illuminator in one regular PC, then you don't need to do the Illuminator environment set up.

Illuminator environment set up for a Raspberry Pi cluster

1. Install Raspberry pi OS using raspberry pi imager.
2. Set static IP address for the Raspberry Pi. Use the following command from in terminal to open the dhcpcd.conf file:

   sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf
   

   In the dhcpcd.conf file, find the information to change the IP address as static as following:

   interface etho
   static ip_address=192.168.0.1/24#change the IP address as you want
   

   Finally reboot the Raspberry Pi through sudo reboot in the terminal.
3. Set leader RasPi to connect followers without password.
4. Install the required packages in the python.

   pandas
   tk
   python-csv
   datetime
   python-math
   numpy
   scipy
   arrow
   mosaik
   mosaik_api
   mosaik.util
   wandb
   matplotlib
   itertools
   

5. Send the Illuminator package to all follower Raspberry Pis. Use the following command in the leader Raspberry Pi terminal to check the connection between leader and follower Raspberry Pis.

   ssh illuminator@ip #ip represent your follower IP address
   

6. Run the ‘buildcilentremoterun.py’ file at each follower and give all users execute permission to all the documents in “runshfile” in order to make sure the leader can access the follower model.

   chmod -R a+X *dir*
   

More detialed instructions are given in the user guide document and model build up document.

License & Contributing development

Illuminator is available under a GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) license. The Illuminator team accepts contributions to the Illuminator source, test files, documentation, and other materials distributed with the program. If you are interested in contributing, please start there, and feel free to reach out to the team using illuminator@tudelft.nl. The Illuminator team does not take any responsibility for the damage or loss that this code might provide.

Reference

Reference for the Illuminator: A. Fu, R. Saini, R. Koornneef, A. van der Meer, P. Palensky and M. Cvetković, "The Illuminator: An Open Source Energy System Integration Development Kit," 2023 IEEE Belgrade PowerTech, Belgrade, Serbia, 2023, pp. 01-05, doi: 10.1109/PowerTech55446.2023.10202816.

Acknowledgements

The Illuminator team extends its sincere gratitude for the invaluable support and contributions from our dedicated members:

• Aihui Fu, who played a pivotal role as the main developer for both Versions 1.0 and 2.0.
• Remko Koornneef, whose expertise in hardware development has been instrumental.
• Siva Kaviya, for her significant contributions to the development of the initial version.
• Raghav Saini, for his substantial involvement in developing the models for Version 1.0.
• Niki Balassi, for his crucial role in advancing the multi-energy system models in Version 2.0.

Each of these individuals has been essential in shaping the success and evolution of our project. We are profoundly thankful for their dedication and expertise.