Intelligent Smart Grids have an enormous potential to optimise the efficiency of the energy supply. Along with this comes the desire for an environment friendly and lasting energy supply using renewable energy sources like photovoltaic plants, wind energy plants and biogas plants. The availability of this renewable energies (sun, wind, etc.) suffers strong variations. To ensure a cost efficient and stable energy supply new methods to save the energy (e.g. electro cars) as well as a control mechanism for the energy consumer are needed. Thus, an intelligent Smart Grid combines the communication network and the controlling of the energy producer, storage units and electrical consumers in energy transport and distribution networks. The position paper (German) by a partner of the project (EWE AG) gives an clear summary about the challenges put to such intelligent Smart Grids.

As a consequence energy producer (e.g. photovoltaic plants), consumer (e.g. stove, freezer) and energy storage units (e.g. freezer, electro car) need to be fetched, observed and controlled in future households. A first step in this direction is the introduction of the so called Smart Meter.

Along with this development comes the increasing linking of systems and devices within a household with the goal of a automated and comfortable usage (e.g roller blind control). In long term, this will lead to an intelligent home, the so-called Smart Home.

Furthermore, right now IP-based public and private communication networks are planed and introduced enabling to communicated in a multimedia way. Keywords for this are voice over IP and next generation networks.

Until now, these 3 developments happen in parallel without any linking to each other. Synergies are recognised rarely. In addition, uncertainties exist about what a customer really wants, for what they are willing to pay for and what benefits and savings come with the new nets and techniques.

The research project “Easy - Service Creation for Home and Energy Management“, short e-SCHEMA, picks up these two problematic fields. The goal is to link the three worlds Smart Grid, Smart Home, and IP-based multimedia communcation and to give the end-user the possibility to provied a tailored, i.e. personalised usage.

The realisation is done through the following 4-way approach:

1. Linking of Smart Grid, Smart Home and multimedia communication using a Service Delivery Platform (SDP)
2. Simplifying the creation of tailored, integrated home- and energie management services through a component based service creation environment (SCE)
3. Easy validation of the service functionalities through the automated generation of corresponding test in a test framework (TFR)
4. Simple including and removing of devices like energy consumer, energy provider, sensors and actors through automated mechanisms for the recognition, announcement and integration in the SDP, SCE and TFR

This project will investigate how basic IP-based protocols, Smart Grid, Smart Home and multimedia over IP services can be developed, tested and deployed on a service delivery platform by the customer himself. The results will be verified by a prototypical implementation. The planed e-SCHEMA solution will foster the adoption of Smart Grid and Smart Home without the need to know the customers requirements, because the will be able to represent them in their own service development.