Timed automata to real-time simulate the ancillary service provision by a District Heating Multi-Energy System

This paper presents a simulation framework for the provision of auxiliary services by a multi-energy district heating system (MES) using timed automata (TA). Multienergy systems are increasingly recognized as valuable assets due to their capability to operate across multiple energy vectors, thereby enabling the extraction of flexibility from diverse sources and delivering it to the electricity grid. The simulations developed in this study focus on the coordinated provision of multiple, concurrent auxiliary services by a pool of MES devices, which imposes stringent real-time coordination requirements. In this context, timed automata offer an effective modelling approach for capturing the temporal dynamics of such systems. The behaviour of the individual devices is governed by coordination strategies designed to fulfil the overarching objectives of the MES. These objectives include meeting energy demand, maintaining the balance among energy vectors, and ensuring the provision of auxiliary services upon activation by the system operator. Each coordination strategy is implemented through mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQP) formulations.