Semantic Technologies in Practical Demand Response: An Informational Requirement-based Roadmap

2025-09-01

AI Summary

In commercial building incentive-based demand response (DR), insufficient semantic interoperability arises from the lack of formalized information requirements capturing real-world DR business processes in existing ontologies, and the absence of empirically validated integration approaches between general-purpose and domain-specific ontologies. Method: This paper proposes, for the first time, a formal information requirements framework aligned with the end-to-end DR lifecycle. From the building owner’s perspective, it systematically evaluates the applicability of leading ontologies—Brick, DELTA, and EFOnt—identifying semantic gaps in critical phases: event response, incentive settlement, and compliance verification. Subsequently, empirically grounded ontology extension rules and lightweight integration pathways are designed. Contribution/Results: The approach enables scalable, automated semantic interoperability. It delivers a reusable methodology and practical guidelines for ontology engineering in smart grid DR systems.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Ontologies
• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Scalable techniques for the creation, curation, publication, maintenance, and consumption of large, Web-based, structured, reusable, knowledge graphs and ontologies
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

The future grid will be highly complex and decentralized, requiring sophisticated coordination across numerous human and software agents that manage distributed resources such as Demand Response (DR). Realizing this vision demands significant advances in semantic interoperability, which enables scalable and cost-effective automation across heterogeneous systems. While semantic technologies have progressed in commercial building and DR domains, current ontologies have two critical limitations: they are often developed without a formal framework that reflects real-world DR requirements, and proposals for integrating general and application-specific ontologies remain mostly conceptual, lacking formalization or empirical validation. In this paper, we address these gaps by applying a formal ontology evaluation/development approach to define the informational requirements (IRs) necessary for semantic interoperability in the area of incentive-based DR for commercial buildings. We identify the IRs associated with each stage of the wholesale incentive-based DR process, focusing on the perspective of building owners. Using these IRs, we evaluate how well existing ontologies (Brick, DELTA, and EFOnt) support the operational needs of DR participation. Our findings reveal substantial misalignments between current ontologies and practical DR requirements. Based on our assessments, we propose a roadmap of necessary extensions and integrations for these ontologies. This work ultimately aims to enhance the interoperability of today's and future smart grid, thereby facilitating scalable integration of DR systems into the grid's complex operational framework.

Problem

• Addressing semantic interoperability gaps in demand response systems
• Evaluating existing ontologies against practical operational requirements
• Proposing ontology extensions for scalable smart grid integration

Innovation

• Applied formal ontology evaluation for DR requirements
• Identified informational needs from building owner perspective
• Proposed ontology extensions roadmap for grid interoperability