VOLTTRON
-
Product Image:
Description:
What is the VOLTTRON™ Platform?
Our energy system is changing rapidly. Across buildings and the grid, digital technology is producing new data streams that offer in-depth understanding of the system. At the same time, integrating renewable energy generation, energy storage, and electric vehicles is adding new challenges.
To enable the integration of this new energy system, a real-time, scalable distributed control and diagnostics capability is needed that maintains high levels of reliability and security. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with support from Department of Energy developed a platform to support the needs of the changing energy system – VOLTTRON™.
VOLTTRON™ is an agent execution platform providing services to its agents that allow them to easily communicate with physical devices and other resources.
VOLTTRON™ delivers an innovative distributed control and sensing software platform that supports modern control strategies, including agent-based and transaction-based controls. It enables mobile and stationary software agents to perform information gathering, processing, and control actions. VOLTTRON™ can independently manage a wide range of applications, such as HVAC systems, electric vehicles, distributed energy or entire building loads, leading to improved operational efficiency.
VOLTTRON™ is not an application such as demand response – demand response can be implemented as an application on top of VOLTTRON.
VOLTTRON™ is open, flexible and modular, and already benefits from community support and development.
VOLTTRON™ Attributes
1. Open, flexible and modular software platform.
2. Easy application development.
3. Object oriented, modern software development environment.
4. Language agnostic – does not tie applications to a specific language.
5. VOLTTRON™ supports a commonly used device and control systems protocols, such as, BACnet® and Modbus®.
6. Low CPU, memory, and storage footprint requirements.
7. Supports non-Intel CPUs.
8. Supports platform services, such as, messaging, mobility and application support.
Security
To address concerns regarding unauthorized access to or attacks on smart technologies for buildings and the power grid, VOLTTRON™ was designed with cybersecurity in mind. It includes security features such as memory protection, resource constraints and guarantees, authentication, authorization, and trust. For advanced diagnostic and control applications that require software to “move” between platforms, VOLTTRON™ supports secure application transport, including code, configuration and collected data.
Applications
VOLTTRON™ has been extensively simulated and tested under ongoing projects with the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Lab Home facilities, VOLTTRON™ successfully scheduled water heater and electric vehicle recharging operations. It is also currently used by Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, in the Buildings Technologies Office funded Transactive Network project, which examines the role transactive networks could play in improving the operations of rooftop units (RTU) on commercial buildings, while also enabling the RTUs to participate in building-grid transactions. A number of other organizations are also using VOLTTRON™ to demonstrate energy efficiency and grid services.
Nuts and Bolts
VOLTTRON™ is designed to be extensible and modular. It is equipped to communicate with building systems (e.g., BACnet® or Modbus® devices) and external services, has a built-in data historian and weather service, supports OpenADR 1.2., has a flexible messaging system (publish/subscribe), as well as utility and supporting classes to simplify application development, and logging service for saving application results and logging information.
Where to get VOLTTRON™
VOLTTRON™ is an open source technology. The source code has been released to the public and the research team invites you to download VOLTTRON™ at GitHub https://github.com/ ; here you will find a quick start page, documentation, and the VOLTTRON™ User Guide. VOLTTRON™’s non-proprietary nature makes it possible for researchers and software developers to use this tool to build applications to more efficiently manage energy use among appliances and devices.
Planned Enhancements
VOLTTRON™ 2.0 was released in September 2014 and introduced agent mobility, secure agent packaging, and resource monitoring. VOLTTRON™ 3.0 is under active development with planned features such as:
• Enhanced security based on the results of penetration testing.
• Supervisory agent able to detect issues with agents and devices and take corrective action.
• Management utilities for easier administration of a distributed VOLTTRON™ deployment.
• Increased modularization of key components such as device communication and data storage making it simpler to swap in alternative technologies.
BACnet® is a registered trademark of American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).
Modbus® is a registered trademark of Modicon Inc.
Acknowledgement:
These data were produced by BATTELLE under Contract No. DE‑AC05-76RL01830 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). For a five-year period from October 31, 2014, the U.S. Government is granted for itself and others acting on its behalf a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable worldwide license in this data to reproduce, prepare derivative works, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the U.S. Government. There is provision for the possible extension of the term of this license. Subsequent to that period or any extension granted, the U.S. Government is granted for itself and others acting on its behalf a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable worldwide license in this data to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, perform publicly and display publicly, and to permit others to do so. The specific term of the license can be identified by inquiry made to BATTELLE or DOE. Neither the United States nor DOE, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any data, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.
Disclaimer:
General disclaimer for use with OSS licenses
This material was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the United States Department of Energy, nor Battelle, nor any of their employees, nor any jurisdiction or organization that has cooperated in the development of these materials, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness or any information, apparatus, product, software, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.
Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof, or Battelle Memorial Institute. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.
PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY
operated by
BATTELLE
for the
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830