Projects

The Energy Hub Management System: Enabling and Empowering Energy Managers Through Increased Information and Control

The purpose of this project is to develop and to implement an Energy Hub Management System that will allow static energy users to manage effectively their energy requirements.

More specifically, this project will empower energy hubs – that is, individual locations that require energy (e.g., manufacturing facilities, farms, retail stores, detached houses) – so that they can contribute to the development of a sustainable society through the real-time management of their energy demand, production, storage and resulting import or export of energy.

The Energy Hub Management System is funded by the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) - Centre of Excellence for Energy and industry partners (as listed below) in the amount of $2.45 million over a three-year study period which began in April 2008. Led by the University of Waterloo, project participants include Hydro One Inc. (Toronto), Energent Incorporated (Waterloo), and Milton Hydro Distribution Inc. (Milton).

Additionally, the Energy Hub Management System project wishes to gratefully acknowledge the support of SafePlug, Simple Home Net, Tetra Tech and Computerized Electricity Systems (CES) in the development of pilots for the Project.

For more information a detailed project description is available.

EHMS Project News and Updates

May, 2012

Visit the Energy Hub Management System booth at OCE's Discovery '12 conference on 14 and 15 May at Booth 330.

March, 2012

Ontario's Environmental Commission -- Gord Miller -- interviews Energent's Craig Haney about the Energy Hub Management System at GLOBE 2012 in Vancouver. See the interview here.

February, 2012

Amanda San Filippo successfully defended her MES thesis entitled, 'Interpreting Barriers to Energy Efficiency within Southern Ontario Municipal Buildings: A Case Study'. A copy may be viewed here.

December, 2011

Project members participated in the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference in Washington, DC. Christina Hoicka presented a poster, and Ian Rowlands delivered a presentation.

September, 2011

Eric Mallia successfully defended his MES thesis entitled, 'Exploring Householders’ Interest in Home Energy Goal-Setting'. A copy of the thesis may be found here.

August, 2011

Mohammad Chehreghani Bozchalui successfully completed his PhD in Electrical and Computing Engineering. The abstract for his thesis, entitled 'Optimal Operation of Energy Hubs in the Context of Smart Grids', will be available here soon.

July, 2011

See an interview with Energent's Craig Haney, as he describes some of our work -- click here and go down to 'Energy Consumption & Solutions' (13 June 2011).

Mohammad Chehreghani Bozchalui, a PhD student in Electrical and Computing Engineering on the project, received a Student Award from Mprime – Canada’s only Network of Centres of Excellence for the mathematical sciences, which brings together academia, industry and the public sector to develop cutting edge mathematical tools vital to the knowledge-based economy. Mohammad will receive his award at the 7th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics - ICIAM 2011 in Vancouver on 21 July 2011. Congratulations, Mohammad!

June, 2011

The poster that Sumit Paudyal will present at the 2011 IEEE-PES General Meeting in Detroit on 25 July 2011, entitled 'Three-phas Distribution OPF in Smart Grids', is available here.

May, 2011

On 18 and 19 May 2011, visit the Energent booth at Discovery 2011 to get more information about the Energy Hub Management System.
On 10 May 2011, Ian Rowlands is scheduled to present at the Ontario Power Summit.
On 2 May 2011, Ian Rowlands and Claudio Canizares reported on the Energy Hub Management System to the Ontario Smart Grid Forum. A copy of the slides they used will be placed here.

April, 2011

Energent CEO, Chris Reid, has published an article entitled 'Lessons from Smart Grid Pilot in Canada can be Applied to New England', in which he references the Energy Hub Management System project.
The posters that Mohammed Chehreghani (July 2009) and Sumit Paudyal (July 2010) presented are now available on-line. Go to the respective dates, below, and click where indicated.

March, 2011

Eric Mallia – a second year Master's student in Environment and Resource Studies at UW working on the project – won the award for best poster at the University of Waterloo’s 3rd Annual Student Colloquium on Climate Change. Held on 10 and 11 March 2011, Eric’s poster was entitled ‘Exploring Home Electricity Management Strategies as a Climate Change Mitigation Option’. More information about the Colloquium may be found here.

October, 2010

As part of the activities associated with the opening of the University of Waterloo’s Energy Research Centre and the appointment of project member Prof. Claudio Canizares as the inaugural Hydro One Endowed Chair, a number of posters reporting upon the project’s work were presented.

July, 2010

Sumit Paudyal presented some of his work at the IEEE-PES General Meeting (Minneapolis, MN, July 2010). The poster is available here.

June, 2010

Christina Hoicka presented a poster entitled '"Smart" Industrial, Commercial and Institutional Consumers in Smart Grids: Identifying Models of Information Use and Communication' at the UKERC PhD Summer School (University of Warwick, UK, June 2010).

May, 2010

In May 2010, Mary Beth Deline successfully defended her MES thesis entitled ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses: Electricity Consumption, Publicity and Social Network Influence in Milton, Ontario'.
Sumit Paudyal presented some of his work in a session entitled ‘High Performance Optimization and Applications’ at the MITACS / CORS 2010 Annual Conference (Edmonton, AB, May 2010). His presentation (developed with Claudio Cañizares and Kankar Bhattacharya) was entitled ‘Optimal Operation of Distribution Feeders in Smart Grids’.
The project participated in Discovery 2010.

November, 2009

Mary Beth Deline presented a poster (co-authored with Ian Rowlands) entitled ‘Keeping Up With the Joneses - Energy Consumption, Publicity and Social Network Influence‘ at the 2009 Behavior, Energy & Climate Change Conference (Washington, DC, November 2009)

October, 2009

Energent, one of the industry partners to the EHMS project, is profiled in the OCE Annual Report.
To view this article please follow the link and scroll to page 29 of the report.

September 10, 2009

Energy Hub partners are profiled in The Kitchener-Waterloo Record.
To view the news article follow this link.

July, 2009

Mohammad Chehreghani Bozchalui presented a poster (co-authored with Claudio Cañizares and Kankar Bhattacharya) entitled ‘Mathematical Optimization Modeling of Energy Hub Management Systems’ at the IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (Calgary, AB, July 2009). The poster is available here.

June, 2009

The project is mentioned again on pages 30 and 32 of the IPPSO FACTO magazine in an article called "Energy Management Hubs".
To view an online version of the article, which is listed near the bottom of the page, click on the following link.

May 12, 2009

A number of faculty and students who are on the EHMS project had a booth set up at OCE Discovery '09. For more information about the event which was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from May 11-12, 2009 please follow the OCE Discovery link.
You can also view the posters that we displayed at OCE Discovery by following these links:

Discovery '09 Energy Hub Management System Overview Poster

Discovery '09 Energy Hub Management System Streams Poster

March, 2009

The project was also mentioned in the 2009 edition of Watch, a magazine published by the UW Research and Technology Park, on pages 12-13.
To view the article click here.

February, 2009

The project is mentioned on pages 14-16 of IPPSO FACTO in an article entitled "Hi-tech firm gets a boost."
To view the article click here.

October 14, 2008

Prof. Ian Rowlands from UW and David Curtis from Hydro One made a presentation about the Energy Hub Management System Project. To view this presentation click here.

February 11, 2008

The EHMS project was mentioned in an article entitled "Energent to Participate in Clean Energy Project," on the Accelerator Centre web site.
To view the article click here.

Project Contact

Dr. Ian H. Rowlands
Professor, Environment and Resource Studies
Faculty of Environment
University of Waterloo

Project Partners

University of Waterloo Key contacts:

Prof. Ian Rowlands (lead), Faculty of Environment
Prof. Claudio Cañizares, Faculty of Engineering
Prof. Kankar Bhattacharya, Faculty of Engineering
Prof. Paul Parker, Faculty of Environment

energent logo Energent Incorporated is a Waterloo-based technology firm leveraging the internet and mathematical modeling technologies to lower the energy costs of its clients. Located in the Waterloo Research & Technology Park, Energent provides industrial, institutional, and commercial clients with customized energy management solutions.

hydro logo Hydro One Inc. delivers electricity safely, reliably and responsibly to homes and businesses across the province of Ontario. Hydro One serves over 1.3 million customers on its distribution system, which spans about 75% of Ontario. Hydro One’s transmission system supplies electricity either directly or indirectly to more than 4 million customers and represents more than 96% of Ontario’s transmission capacity. The company is wholly owned by the Government of Ontario.

milton Milton Hydro Distribution Inc. is a local distribution company, which is responsible for distributing electricity to more than 23,000 business and residential customers within the Town of Milton.

Milton Hydro Distribution Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Milton Hydro Holdings Inc., owned by the Town of Milton. Milton Hydro has been providing safe, reliable, and affordable electricity service for nearly a century.

The Ontario Centre of Excellence for Energy was created in response to the significant challenges and opportunities posed by the current energy situation in Ontario. The Centre invests in and promotes cutting-edge research collaborations between industry and colleges, universities and research hospitals. In this way, we foster innovation in energy markets, systems and technologies.

The Ontario Power Authority's vision is a sustainable, competitive and reliable electricity system for the benefit of Ontario consumers. The organisation will balance the short-term and long-term needs of electricity users while developing a reliable and sustainable electricity system for their benefit. The Ontario Power Authority contributes to the development of a reliable and sustainable electricity system for the benefit of Ontario customers. In doing so, we plan for the long term and procure and coordinate conservation and electricity supply from diverse resources. (The OPA wordmark and the phrase "Ontario Power Authority" are Official Marks owned by the Ontario Power Authority.)