Mission Statement
LayerATDT's mission is to give any energy community — from student housing in Bogotá to suburban neighbourhoods in Sydney — a free, open and transparent way to coordinate rooftop solar, batteries and shared electricity, and to divide the resulting benefits fairly, so that cooperation is both economically attractive and socially durable. We believe the "fairness layer" of community energy should be as open, auditable and shared as the energy data and control layers.
Description
LayerATDT is an open-source decision-support engine (Python/Streamlit) for the design of coordination and transaction mechanisms in local energy communities. Given a community's demand profiles, distributed energy resources (rooftop PV, battery storage), tariffs and member characteristics, the tool:
Optimises cooperative dispatch of solar, batteries and peer-to-peer energy sharing versus standalone operation, using linear programming (cvxpy with open solvers: HiGHS/Clarabel/SciPy) — quantifying the economic and CO₂ value of cooperation.
Allocates the cooperation surplus among members using cooperative game theory, exploring a Pareto frontier of allocation weights (blending allocation principles such as Shapley-style and nucleolus-style rules).
Ships two ready-to-use allocation architectures: ATDT (a transparent baseline) and TOPSIS (a compromise solution selected with multi-criteria decision analysis over the Pareto frontier).
Evaluates every design with fairness, stability and transparency metrics — Jain's index, Gini coefficient, envy-freeness (with tolerance), individual rationality, core gap, and budget balance — alongside economic, peak-shaving and CO₂ indicators.
Explains results to non-experts through explainable dashboards: Community Wellbeing Index, per-member savings, seasonal dispatch, battery coordination, and grid interaction (load duration curves, peak reduction).
Why it is valuable: the technology for community energy exists, but projects fail socially when members perceive the distribution of benefits as unfair. Benefit-sharing design is currently done with proprietary consulting tools or bespoke academic code. LayerATDT turns peer-reviewed optimisation and game theory into an auditable, reusable open tool that a community, a municipality or a regulator can run for free — including communities in the Global South, for whom commercial platforms are out of reach.
Origin and history: the project was born inside the Community Energy Grand Challenge 2026 (ComErgy) international benchmark coopetition, working from the ComErgy Benchmark Dataset 2026 (nine diverse households in Sydney, Australia, including a vulnerable low-income household). It was developed at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL, Bogotá) with the Institute of Electrical Energy of the Universidad Nacional de San Juan (IEE-UNSJ, Argentina), within RIPCEL — Red Iberoamericana para la Promoción de Comunidades Energéticas Locales para la Transición Justa y Sostenible (an Ibero-American network of 16 countries funded by CYTED). A public web application and the first open-source release were published in August 2026.
Proposed Project Stage
Sandbox
Is this a new project or an existing one?
Proposed Project Stage
Sandbox.
LayerATDT is an early-stage, independent project that fits the LF Energy mission and addresses an unfulfilled need (an open fairness/benefit-sharing layer for energy communities). We meet the Sandbox entry characteristics: at least one active maintainer, public code, and a realistic intent to progress to Incubation and beyond within the lifecycle timelines (target: Sandbox → Incubation within 12 months of acceptance).
Is this a new project or an existing one?
New project (started 2026), with a working public prototype: code, pre-calculated results and a live web application built on the ComErgy Benchmark Dataset 2026. The initial codebase and app were released publicly in August 2026; no prior releases or external contributors yet.
Current lead(s)
Prof. Sergio Rivera, Ph.D. — Full Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universidadidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá, Colombia). Principal investigator in optimisation, AI/ML applied to power systems, smart grids and microgrids; IEEE Senior Member. GitHub: @srriverar — srriverar@unal.edu.co
Prof. Andres Romero, Ph.D. Lead researcher, Institute of Electrical Energy, Universidad Nacional de San Juan (IEE-UNSJ), Argentina — co-lead for game theory and energy-community modelling.
Sponsoring organization(s), along with any other key contributing individuals and/or organizations
Key contributing organizations:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL) — Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (lead institution; optimisation, AI, power systems).
Instituto de Energía Eléctrica, Universidad Nacional de San Juan (IEE-UNSJ), Argentina — energy systems modelling.
RIPCEL (Red Iberoamericana para la Promoción de Comunidades Energéticas Locales, CYTED programme) — network of research groups in 16 Ibero-American countries working on technical, regulatory and social solutions for local energy communities; a natural pipeline of contributors and pilot communities.
Detail any existing community infrastructure, including:
- Github/GitLab, or other location where the code is hosted
- Website and/or docs
- Communication channels ( such as Mailing lists, Slack, IRC )
- Social Media Accounts
- PyPi, npm, or other App Stores maintainted by the project
Code hosting: GitHub — https://github.com/srriverar/LayerATDT (public; issues enabled).
Live web application (Streamlit Community Cloud): https://comergy-2026-2initialmethods.streamlit.app/
Website/docs: none yet (repository README + in-app documentation); a documentation site is planned.
Communication channels: none formal yet; currently GitHub issues + email. We will adopt LF Energy Slack and a project mailing list upon acceptance.
Social media: none dedicated (university and RIPCEL channels occasionally feature the work).
Package distribution: none yet; PyPI publication planned after API stabilisation.
Are there any specific infrastructure needs or requests outside of what is provided normally by LF Energy ? If so please detail them.
No critical needs beyond the standard LF Energy stack (GitHub org, Slack, mailing lists, LFX). Two minor items:
Guidance on hosting the interactive demo application (Streamlit) under LF Energy infrastructure or an accepted external provider, so the "try it in 30 seconds" experience remains free for communities.
Occasional compute for regenerating pre-calculated results on new benchmark datasets (available through university HPC; no dedicated request).
Why would this be a good candidate for inclusion in LF Energy?
It fills a real gap in the LF Energy portfolio. Existing projects cover forecasting and scheduling (FlexMeasures, OpenSTEF), grid operation and RL benchmarks (Grid2Op, PowSyBl), building/community RL benchmarks (CityLearn), demand response signalling (OpenLEADR) and DER interfaces (CUPID). None provides an open, general-purpose engine for the allocation of cooperation value among community members with formal fairness and stability guarantees — the social piece that decides whether community energy projects survive.
Methodological bridge: it brings cooperative game theory + multi-criteria decision analysis + explainable dashboards to the same table as optimisation and AI, in the spirit of the AI SIG and the Edge Interoperability & Flexibility SIG.
Global South leadership and diversity: an Ibero-American-led project (Colombia/Argentina + CYTED network of 16 countries) broadens LF Energy's geographic and social base, and directly addresses energy poverty and just transition use cases (the benchmark community includes a designated vulnerable household).
Vendor-neutral home: the tool emerged from an international academic coopetition; LF Energy is the natural neutral custodian for what is intended to become a community standard.
How would this benefit from inclusion in LF Energy?
Neutral governance and IP stewardship (trademark, charter, contribution agreements) enabling contributors from utilities, vendors and universities across countries to participate on equal terms.
Community growth beyond the founding universities via LF Energy's Slack, SIGs (AI SIG; Edge Interoperability & Flexibility SIG), events and visibility — converting an academic prototype into a practitioner ecosystem.
Professional OSS practices: CI, license scans, LFX Insights/Security, release engineering and mentoring from experienced maintainers.
Interoperability partnerships with complementary projects (FlexMeasures, CityLearn, Grid2Op, OpenLEADR, CUPID) under a shared foundation.
Provide a statement on alignment with the mission in the LF Energy charter.
LayerATDT directly advances LF Energy's mission of accelerating the energy transition and the decarbonisation of power systems through open source collaboration. It does so at the distribution edge where the transition is most human: enabling households, cooperatives and communities to pool distributed energy resources and share the benefits transparently and verifiably. All code, data workflows and evaluation metrics are open (Apache-2.0 [in progress]), vendor-neutral, and reusable by any stakeholder — utilities, regulators, communities and researchers — worldwide, including in developing regions. The project's commitment to open benchmarks, reproducible evaluation and public roadmaps matches the foundation's principles of open governance and collaborative development.
What specific need does this project address?
The "fair benefit-sharing" bottleneck of community energy. Rooftop solar, batteries and P2P trading technology are mature, but cooperation among prosumers collapses when the division of savings is perceived as unfair or opaque. Today there is no open, auditable tool that: (1) quantifies the surplus created by cooperating; (2) proposes allocations with formal properties (individual rationality, envy-freeness, core stability, budget balance); and (3) explains the trade-offs to members and regulators. Communities, municipalities, DSOs and researchers currently must either buy proprietary consulting or reinvent bespoke academic code. LayerATDT fills that gap end-to-end, for free.
Describe how this project impacts the energy industry.
De-risks community energy deployments: quantifies value and tests allocation rules before capital is committed; supports bankability of community projects (savings per member, peak reduction, CO₂).
Standards for fairness: promotes auditable fairness KPIs (Jain, Gini, envy-freeness, core gap) that regulators and DSOs can require in community schemes and local flexibility markets.
Regulatory support: offers regulators a neutral reference tool to evaluate prosumer tariff and P2P schemes (e.g., in Ibero-America, where RIPCEL members advise governments).
Grid impact: cooperative dispatch reduces peak grid imports (peak shaving) and maximises local self-consumption, deferring network reinforcement.
Just transition: explicit treatment of vulnerable households (income, occupancy, vulnerability flags) supports equity-aware policy design.
Describe how this project intersects with other LF Energy projects/working groups/special interest groups.
Complementary, non-overlapping intersections:
FlexMeasures (Incubating): FlexMeasures schedules flexibility; LayerATDT decides how the resulting value is shared among community members. Natural integration: LayerATDT on top of FlexMeasures-based dispatch.
CityLearn (Sandbox): shared benchmark philosophy (community-scale DER control); LayerATDT adds the cooperative game-theory/valuation layer and fairness evaluation for community benchmarks.
Grid2Op (Incubating): complementary focus (transmission/operation RL vs. community benefit-sharing); shared community of practice in optimisation for power systems.
OpenLEADR / Shapeshifter / CUPID: LayerATDT can consume DR/flexibility signals and DER interfaces as inputs to community coordination.
Smart HEMS Benchmark / OpenSTEF: forecasting outputs feed LayerATDT's scenario engine.
AI SIG: XAI dashboards and (roadmap) ML-assisted allocation design.
Edge Interoperability and Flexibility SIG: behind-the-meter coordination and flexibility management — LayerATDT addresses the community/market-design side of that SIG's scope.
Who are the potential benefactors of this project?
Community energy cooperatives and prosumer groups (direct users).
Municipalities and local governments planning community solar/battery schemes.
Distribution system operators (DSOs) and retailers designing community/market pilot programs.
Regulators and ministries evaluating P2P trading and prosumer tariff rules.
Researchers and educators (reproducible benchmark + teaching tool).
Development organisations funding energy access and just-transition programs (e.g., IDB, World Bank, UNDP) and the 16-country RIPCEL/CYTED network.
What other organizations in the world should be interested in this project?
RIPCEL / CYTED institutions (Spain, Portugal, and 14 Latin American countries) as contributors and pilot sites.
ComErgy Network and the Community Energy Futures Conference (Australia) — benchmark partners.
REScoop.eu, Energy Communities Repository (EU), Community Energy England/Australia — community energy alliances.
Utilities, DSOs and flexibility aggregators exploring community schemes (e.g., in the EU under RED III energy communities provisions).
Universities with energy-transition programs; national labs (e.g., NREL) working on DER and energy equity research.
Latin American regulators and ministries (Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil) studying energy communities regulation.
Plan for growing in maturity if accepted within LF Energy
Months 0–3 (Sandbox onboarding): complete onboarding requirements — Apache-2.0 licence, technical charter, LF Energy Code of Conduct, English documentation, CI, contributor guide; move repo to LF Energy GitHub org; start monthly public community meetings with published minutes and roadmap; expand maintainers to ≥3 across ≥2 organisations (UNAL, UNSJ, + one RIPCEL partner).
Months 3–6: release v0.3 — dataset-agnostic API (any community's CSV, not only ComErgy), PyPI package, interactive docs and tutorials; first external contributors onboarded; first RIPCEL pilot case study (Ibero-American community).
Months 6–12: v1.0 — allocation-rule plugin architecture (Shapley, nucleolus, proportional, custom), Monte Carlo uncertainty module, multi-community coordination prototype; engage FlexMeasures/CityLearn interoperability discussions via SIGs; publish results at an energy informatics venue; apply for Incubation.
Beyond (12–24 months): Early Adoption — pilots with DSOs/municipalities, reference fairness KPI dashboard for regulators; governance board with community and industry maintainers.
Project license
Apache-2.0 (license file to be added to the repository as part of onboarding — currently the repository has no license file yet; [ACTION: add LICENSE before/with submission]).
Is the project's code available now? If so provide a link to the code location.
Yes — public since August 2026:
Code: https://github.com/srriverar/LayerATDT
Live application: https://comergy-2026-2initialmethods.streamlit.app/
(ComErgy Benchmark Dataset 2026 is published separately by the ComErgy Network: https://comergy.com.au/)
Does this project have ongoing public (or private) technical meetings?
Not yet. Currently collaboration is asynchronous (GitHub issues/PRs + research group meetings at UNAL/UNSJ). Commitment: upon acceptance we will hold monthly public community meetings (announced on the LF Energy calendar and project mailing list) with published agendas and minutes.
Does this project's community venues have a code of conduct? If so, please provide a link to it?
Not yet in the repository. We will adopt the LF Energy / Linux Foundation Code of Conduct for all project venues (repo, chat, meetings) as part of onboarding (target: within the first 30 days). (Recommended: add a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md linking to the LF Energy CoC before submission.)
Describe the project's leadership team and decision-making process.
Today: lead maintainer (Prof. Sergio Rivera, UNAL) supported by co-lead ((Prof. ANdres Romero) at IEE-UNSJ and collaborators within the RIPCEL network; decisions are made by consensus among the research leads, with issues tracked publicly on GitHub.
Target governance (documented in GOVERNANCE.md during onboarding, aligned with LF Energy practices):
Maintainers across multiple organisations, added by existing maintainer consensus based on sustained contribution.
Decision-making: lazy consensus on issues/PRs; escalation to maintainer vote; design changes via lightweight RFC documents in the repo; transparent meeting minutes.
No single-vendor control; academic and community stakeholders balanced.
Does this project have public governance (more than just one organization)?
Partially — the project is developed by researchers from two universities in two countries (UNAL, Colombia; UNSJ, Argentina) embedded in the multi-country RIPCEL/CYTED network, but formal multi-organisation governance documents do not exist yet. Formalising public, multi-organisation governance is a first-6-months commitment (see growth plan).
Does this project have a development schedule and/or release schedule?
Research-sprint driven so far. Planned formal schedule on acceptance: semantic versioning; minor releases quarterly (v0.3 → v0.4 → …), patch releases as needed; v1.0 within ~12 months; release notes published with each tag. (See roadmap below.)
Does this project have dependencies on other open source projects? Which ones?
Yes — all open source (Python ecosystem): Streamlit (UI), NumPy/pandas (data), cvxpy with open LP solvers (HiGHS, Clarabel, SciPy), Matplotlib and Plotly (visualisation), plus Python standard library (gzip, pickle for pre-calculated results). No proprietary dependencies. ( ACTION: keep requirements.txt pinned for the onboarding license scan.)
Describe the project's documentation.
Current: repository README (run instructions) plus rich in-app documentation (guided workflow, metric definitions, dashboards with explanations of Jain/Gini/envy-freeness/core-gap concepts in plain language). Planned within onboarding: MkDocs-based documentation site (installation, methodological foundations, tutorial with the ComErgy benchmark, "bring your own community data" guide, API reference), contribution guide and roadmap.
Describe any trademarks associated with the project.
None registered. The names "LayerATDT" and "COMERGY 2026 Architecture Engine" are currently unregistered marks used non-commercially. Per the Sandbox requirements, the project will transfer relevant marks/domain names to LF Projects LLC / Linux Foundation Europe and assist with any filings as needed. (Note: "ComErgy" benchmark branding belongs to the ComErgy Network; the project references it as an external benchmark and will adopt a foundation-neutral project name if the TAC prefers.)
Do you have a project roadmap? If so please attach or provide a link.
Draft roadmap (to be committed as ROADMAP.md in the repository — text below):
v0.3 (Q1 onboarding window): dataset-agnostic input API; English docs site; CI; PyPI package; contributor guide; public monthly meetings.
v0.4–v0.6: allocation-rule plugin architecture (Shapley, nucleolus, proportional, custom rules); uncertainty analysis (Montario Carlo over load/PV/price); Spanish/Portuguese UI localisation; two RIPCEL pilot case studies.
v1.0 (≈12 months): stable API; multi-community coordination (P2P between communities); regulatory reporting exports; Incubation application.
v1.x+: ML-assisted allocation design (XAI), integration connectors (FlexMeasures/OpenLEADR), reference implementations for policy pilots.
Are this project's roadmap and meeting minutes public posted?
The roadmap will be published as ROADMAP.md at onboarding. Meeting minutes do not exist yet (no formal meetings); both roadmap and minutes will be public in the repository from the first public meeting onward.
Does this project have a legal entity and/or registered trademarks?
No legal entity of its own; the project is hosted academically at Universidad Nacional de Colombia with participation of Universidad Nacional de San Juan (Argentina). No registered trademarks. Assets would move to LF Projects LLC / Linux Foundation Europe per the LF Energy technical charter.
Has this project been announced or promoted in any press?
No formal press yet. The tool is being presented within the Community Energy Grand Challenge 2026 (ComErgy) international coopetition and to the RIPCEL/CYTED network (16 countries); university and network communications are planned. We would welcome an LF Energy blog post at acceptance.
Does this project compete with other open source projects or commercial products?
It is complementary rather than competing:
vs. FlexMeasures / OpenSTEF (forecasting & scheduling): LayerATDT focuses on the downstream question of value allocation, not prediction/control — integration is more natural than competition.
vs. CityLearn / Grid2Op (benchmarks/RL environments): LayerATDT is a design/decision tool, not a control benchmark; it can consume such environments.
vs. commercial VPP/EMS platforms and energy-community consultancies (mostly proprietary, Europe/Australia-centred): LayerATDT is the open, code-auditable alternative focused on fairness and explainability, and uniquely attentive to Global South / energy-poverty contexts. Where commercial players exist, an open reference implementation expands the market by enabling standard, transparent evaluation — consistent with LF Energy's role.
Mission Statement
LayerATDT's mission is to give any energy community — from student housing in Bogotá to suburban neighbourhoods in Sydney — a free, open and transparent way to coordinate rooftop solar, batteries and shared electricity, and to divide the resulting benefits fairly, so that cooperation is both economically attractive and socially durable. We believe the "fairness layer" of community energy should be as open, auditable and shared as the energy data and control layers.
Description
LayerATDT is an open-source decision-support engine (Python/Streamlit) for the design of coordination and transaction mechanisms in local energy communities. Given a community's demand profiles, distributed energy resources (rooftop PV, battery storage), tariffs and member characteristics, the tool:
Optimises cooperative dispatch of solar, batteries and peer-to-peer energy sharing versus standalone operation, using linear programming (cvxpy with open solvers: HiGHS/Clarabel/SciPy) — quantifying the economic and CO₂ value of cooperation.
Allocates the cooperation surplus among members using cooperative game theory, exploring a Pareto frontier of allocation weights (blending allocation principles such as Shapley-style and nucleolus-style rules).
Ships two ready-to-use allocation architectures: ATDT (a transparent baseline) and TOPSIS (a compromise solution selected with multi-criteria decision analysis over the Pareto frontier).
Evaluates every design with fairness, stability and transparency metrics — Jain's index, Gini coefficient, envy-freeness (with tolerance), individual rationality, core gap, and budget balance — alongside economic, peak-shaving and CO₂ indicators.
Explains results to non-experts through explainable dashboards: Community Wellbeing Index, per-member savings, seasonal dispatch, battery coordination, and grid interaction (load duration curves, peak reduction).
Why it is valuable: the technology for community energy exists, but projects fail socially when members perceive the distribution of benefits as unfair. Benefit-sharing design is currently done with proprietary consulting tools or bespoke academic code. LayerATDT turns peer-reviewed optimisation and game theory into an auditable, reusable open tool that a community, a municipality or a regulator can run for free — including communities in the Global South, for whom commercial platforms are out of reach.
Origin and history: the project was born inside the Community Energy Grand Challenge 2026 (ComErgy) international benchmark coopetition, working from the ComErgy Benchmark Dataset 2026 (nine diverse households in Sydney, Australia, including a vulnerable low-income household). It was developed at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL, Bogotá) with the Institute of Electrical Energy of the Universidad Nacional de San Juan (IEE-UNSJ, Argentina), within RIPCEL — Red Iberoamericana para la Promoción de Comunidades Energéticas Locales para la Transición Justa y Sostenible (an Ibero-American network of 16 countries funded by CYTED). A public web application and the first open-source release were published in August 2026.
Proposed Project Stage
Sandbox
Is this a new project or an existing one?
Proposed Project Stage
Sandbox.
LayerATDT is an early-stage, independent project that fits the LF Energy mission and addresses an unfulfilled need (an open fairness/benefit-sharing layer for energy communities). We meet the Sandbox entry characteristics: at least one active maintainer, public code, and a realistic intent to progress to Incubation and beyond within the lifecycle timelines (target: Sandbox → Incubation within 12 months of acceptance).
Is this a new project or an existing one?
New project (started 2026), with a working public prototype: code, pre-calculated results and a live web application built on the ComErgy Benchmark Dataset 2026. The initial codebase and app were released publicly in August 2026; no prior releases or external contributors yet.
Current lead(s)
Prof. Sergio Rivera, Ph.D. — Full Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Universidadidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá, Colombia). Principal investigator in optimisation, AI/ML applied to power systems, smart grids and microgrids; IEEE Senior Member. GitHub: @srriverar — srriverar@unal.edu.co
Prof. Andres Romero, Ph.D. Lead researcher, Institute of Electrical Energy, Universidad Nacional de San Juan (IEE-UNSJ), Argentina — co-lead for game theory and energy-community modelling.
Sponsoring organization(s), along with any other key contributing individuals and/or organizations
Key contributing organizations:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL) — Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (lead institution; optimisation, AI, power systems).
Instituto de Energía Eléctrica, Universidad Nacional de San Juan (IEE-UNSJ), Argentina — energy systems modelling.
RIPCEL (Red Iberoamericana para la Promoción de Comunidades Energéticas Locales, CYTED programme) — network of research groups in 16 Ibero-American countries working on technical, regulatory and social solutions for local energy communities; a natural pipeline of contributors and pilot communities.
Detail any existing community infrastructure, including:
Code hosting: GitHub — https://github.com/srriverar/LayerATDT (public; issues enabled).
Live web application (Streamlit Community Cloud): https://comergy-2026-2initialmethods.streamlit.app/
Website/docs: none yet (repository README + in-app documentation); a documentation site is planned.
Communication channels: none formal yet; currently GitHub issues + email. We will adopt LF Energy Slack and a project mailing list upon acceptance.
Social media: none dedicated (university and RIPCEL channels occasionally feature the work).
Package distribution: none yet; PyPI publication planned after API stabilisation.
Are there any specific infrastructure needs or requests outside of what is provided normally by LF Energy ? If so please detail them.
No critical needs beyond the standard LF Energy stack (GitHub org, Slack, mailing lists, LFX). Two minor items:
Guidance on hosting the interactive demo application (Streamlit) under LF Energy infrastructure or an accepted external provider, so the "try it in 30 seconds" experience remains free for communities.
Occasional compute for regenerating pre-calculated results on new benchmark datasets (available through university HPC; no dedicated request).
Why would this be a good candidate for inclusion in LF Energy?
It fills a real gap in the LF Energy portfolio. Existing projects cover forecasting and scheduling (FlexMeasures, OpenSTEF), grid operation and RL benchmarks (Grid2Op, PowSyBl), building/community RL benchmarks (CityLearn), demand response signalling (OpenLEADR) and DER interfaces (CUPID). None provides an open, general-purpose engine for the allocation of cooperation value among community members with formal fairness and stability guarantees — the social piece that decides whether community energy projects survive.
Methodological bridge: it brings cooperative game theory + multi-criteria decision analysis + explainable dashboards to the same table as optimisation and AI, in the spirit of the AI SIG and the Edge Interoperability & Flexibility SIG.
Global South leadership and diversity: an Ibero-American-led project (Colombia/Argentina + CYTED network of 16 countries) broadens LF Energy's geographic and social base, and directly addresses energy poverty and just transition use cases (the benchmark community includes a designated vulnerable household).
Vendor-neutral home: the tool emerged from an international academic coopetition; LF Energy is the natural neutral custodian for what is intended to become a community standard.
How would this benefit from inclusion in LF Energy?
Neutral governance and IP stewardship (trademark, charter, contribution agreements) enabling contributors from utilities, vendors and universities across countries to participate on equal terms.
Community growth beyond the founding universities via LF Energy's Slack, SIGs (AI SIG; Edge Interoperability & Flexibility SIG), events and visibility — converting an academic prototype into a practitioner ecosystem.
Professional OSS practices: CI, license scans, LFX Insights/Security, release engineering and mentoring from experienced maintainers.
Interoperability partnerships with complementary projects (FlexMeasures, CityLearn, Grid2Op, OpenLEADR, CUPID) under a shared foundation.
Provide a statement on alignment with the mission in the LF Energy charter.
LayerATDT directly advances LF Energy's mission of accelerating the energy transition and the decarbonisation of power systems through open source collaboration. It does so at the distribution edge where the transition is most human: enabling households, cooperatives and communities to pool distributed energy resources and share the benefits transparently and verifiably. All code, data workflows and evaluation metrics are open (Apache-2.0 [in progress]), vendor-neutral, and reusable by any stakeholder — utilities, regulators, communities and researchers — worldwide, including in developing regions. The project's commitment to open benchmarks, reproducible evaluation and public roadmaps matches the foundation's principles of open governance and collaborative development.
What specific need does this project address?
The "fair benefit-sharing" bottleneck of community energy. Rooftop solar, batteries and P2P trading technology are mature, but cooperation among prosumers collapses when the division of savings is perceived as unfair or opaque. Today there is no open, auditable tool that: (1) quantifies the surplus created by cooperating; (2) proposes allocations with formal properties (individual rationality, envy-freeness, core stability, budget balance); and (3) explains the trade-offs to members and regulators. Communities, municipalities, DSOs and researchers currently must either buy proprietary consulting or reinvent bespoke academic code. LayerATDT fills that gap end-to-end, for free.
Describe how this project impacts the energy industry.
De-risks community energy deployments: quantifies value and tests allocation rules before capital is committed; supports bankability of community projects (savings per member, peak reduction, CO₂).
Standards for fairness: promotes auditable fairness KPIs (Jain, Gini, envy-freeness, core gap) that regulators and DSOs can require in community schemes and local flexibility markets.
Regulatory support: offers regulators a neutral reference tool to evaluate prosumer tariff and P2P schemes (e.g., in Ibero-America, where RIPCEL members advise governments).
Grid impact: cooperative dispatch reduces peak grid imports (peak shaving) and maximises local self-consumption, deferring network reinforcement.
Just transition: explicit treatment of vulnerable households (income, occupancy, vulnerability flags) supports equity-aware policy design.
Describe how this project intersects with other LF Energy projects/working groups/special interest groups.
Complementary, non-overlapping intersections:
FlexMeasures (Incubating): FlexMeasures schedules flexibility; LayerATDT decides how the resulting value is shared among community members. Natural integration: LayerATDT on top of FlexMeasures-based dispatch.
CityLearn (Sandbox): shared benchmark philosophy (community-scale DER control); LayerATDT adds the cooperative game-theory/valuation layer and fairness evaluation for community benchmarks.
Grid2Op (Incubating): complementary focus (transmission/operation RL vs. community benefit-sharing); shared community of practice in optimisation for power systems.
OpenLEADR / Shapeshifter / CUPID: LayerATDT can consume DR/flexibility signals and DER interfaces as inputs to community coordination.
Smart HEMS Benchmark / OpenSTEF: forecasting outputs feed LayerATDT's scenario engine.
AI SIG: XAI dashboards and (roadmap) ML-assisted allocation design.
Edge Interoperability and Flexibility SIG: behind-the-meter coordination and flexibility management — LayerATDT addresses the community/market-design side of that SIG's scope.
Who are the potential benefactors of this project?
Community energy cooperatives and prosumer groups (direct users).
Municipalities and local governments planning community solar/battery schemes.
Distribution system operators (DSOs) and retailers designing community/market pilot programs.
Regulators and ministries evaluating P2P trading and prosumer tariff rules.
Researchers and educators (reproducible benchmark + teaching tool).
Development organisations funding energy access and just-transition programs (e.g., IDB, World Bank, UNDP) and the 16-country RIPCEL/CYTED network.
What other organizations in the world should be interested in this project?
RIPCEL / CYTED institutions (Spain, Portugal, and 14 Latin American countries) as contributors and pilot sites.
ComErgy Network and the Community Energy Futures Conference (Australia) — benchmark partners.
REScoop.eu, Energy Communities Repository (EU), Community Energy England/Australia — community energy alliances.
Utilities, DSOs and flexibility aggregators exploring community schemes (e.g., in the EU under RED III energy communities provisions).
Universities with energy-transition programs; national labs (e.g., NREL) working on DER and energy equity research.
Latin American regulators and ministries (Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil) studying energy communities regulation.
Plan for growing in maturity if accepted within LF Energy
Months 0–3 (Sandbox onboarding): complete onboarding requirements — Apache-2.0 licence, technical charter, LF Energy Code of Conduct, English documentation, CI, contributor guide; move repo to LF Energy GitHub org; start monthly public community meetings with published minutes and roadmap; expand maintainers to ≥3 across ≥2 organisations (UNAL, UNSJ, + one RIPCEL partner).
Months 3–6: release v0.3 — dataset-agnostic API (any community's CSV, not only ComErgy), PyPI package, interactive docs and tutorials; first external contributors onboarded; first RIPCEL pilot case study (Ibero-American community).
Months 6–12: v1.0 — allocation-rule plugin architecture (Shapley, nucleolus, proportional, custom), Monte Carlo uncertainty module, multi-community coordination prototype; engage FlexMeasures/CityLearn interoperability discussions via SIGs; publish results at an energy informatics venue; apply for Incubation.
Beyond (12–24 months): Early Adoption — pilots with DSOs/municipalities, reference fairness KPI dashboard for regulators; governance board with community and industry maintainers.
Project license
Apache-2.0 (license file to be added to the repository as part of onboarding — currently the repository has no license file yet; [ACTION: add LICENSE before/with submission]).
Is the project's code available now? If so provide a link to the code location.
Yes — public since August 2026:
Code: https://github.com/srriverar/LayerATDT
Live application: https://comergy-2026-2initialmethods.streamlit.app/
(ComErgy Benchmark Dataset 2026 is published separately by the ComErgy Network: https://comergy.com.au/)
Does this project have ongoing public (or private) technical meetings?
Not yet. Currently collaboration is asynchronous (GitHub issues/PRs + research group meetings at UNAL/UNSJ). Commitment: upon acceptance we will hold monthly public community meetings (announced on the LF Energy calendar and project mailing list) with published agendas and minutes.
Does this project's community venues have a code of conduct? If so, please provide a link to it?
Not yet in the repository. We will adopt the LF Energy / Linux Foundation Code of Conduct for all project venues (repo, chat, meetings) as part of onboarding (target: within the first 30 days). (Recommended: add a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md linking to the LF Energy CoC before submission.)
Describe the project's leadership team and decision-making process.
Today: lead maintainer (Prof. Sergio Rivera, UNAL) supported by co-lead ((Prof. ANdres Romero) at IEE-UNSJ and collaborators within the RIPCEL network; decisions are made by consensus among the research leads, with issues tracked publicly on GitHub.
Target governance (documented in GOVERNANCE.md during onboarding, aligned with LF Energy practices):
Maintainers across multiple organisations, added by existing maintainer consensus based on sustained contribution.
Decision-making: lazy consensus on issues/PRs; escalation to maintainer vote; design changes via lightweight RFC documents in the repo; transparent meeting minutes.
No single-vendor control; academic and community stakeholders balanced.
Does this project have public governance (more than just one organization)?
Partially — the project is developed by researchers from two universities in two countries (UNAL, Colombia; UNSJ, Argentina) embedded in the multi-country RIPCEL/CYTED network, but formal multi-organisation governance documents do not exist yet. Formalising public, multi-organisation governance is a first-6-months commitment (see growth plan).
Does this project have a development schedule and/or release schedule?
Research-sprint driven so far. Planned formal schedule on acceptance: semantic versioning; minor releases quarterly (v0.3 → v0.4 → …), patch releases as needed; v1.0 within ~12 months; release notes published with each tag. (See roadmap below.)
Does this project have dependencies on other open source projects? Which ones?
Yes — all open source (Python ecosystem): Streamlit (UI), NumPy/pandas (data), cvxpy with open LP solvers (HiGHS, Clarabel, SciPy), Matplotlib and Plotly (visualisation), plus Python standard library (gzip, pickle for pre-calculated results). No proprietary dependencies. ( ACTION: keep requirements.txt pinned for the onboarding license scan.)
Describe the project's documentation.
Current: repository README (run instructions) plus rich in-app documentation (guided workflow, metric definitions, dashboards with explanations of Jain/Gini/envy-freeness/core-gap concepts in plain language). Planned within onboarding: MkDocs-based documentation site (installation, methodological foundations, tutorial with the ComErgy benchmark, "bring your own community data" guide, API reference), contribution guide and roadmap.
Describe any trademarks associated with the project.
None registered. The names "LayerATDT" and "COMERGY 2026 Architecture Engine" are currently unregistered marks used non-commercially. Per the Sandbox requirements, the project will transfer relevant marks/domain names to LF Projects LLC / Linux Foundation Europe and assist with any filings as needed. (Note: "ComErgy" benchmark branding belongs to the ComErgy Network; the project references it as an external benchmark and will adopt a foundation-neutral project name if the TAC prefers.)
Do you have a project roadmap? If so please attach or provide a link.
Draft roadmap (to be committed as ROADMAP.md in the repository — text below):
v0.3 (Q1 onboarding window): dataset-agnostic input API; English docs site; CI; PyPI package; contributor guide; public monthly meetings.
v0.4–v0.6: allocation-rule plugin architecture (Shapley, nucleolus, proportional, custom rules); uncertainty analysis (Montario Carlo over load/PV/price); Spanish/Portuguese UI localisation; two RIPCEL pilot case studies.
v1.0 (≈12 months): stable API; multi-community coordination (P2P between communities); regulatory reporting exports; Incubation application.
v1.x+: ML-assisted allocation design (XAI), integration connectors (FlexMeasures/OpenLEADR), reference implementations for policy pilots.
Are this project's roadmap and meeting minutes public posted?
The roadmap will be published as ROADMAP.md at onboarding. Meeting minutes do not exist yet (no formal meetings); both roadmap and minutes will be public in the repository from the first public meeting onward.
Does this project have a legal entity and/or registered trademarks?
No legal entity of its own; the project is hosted academically at Universidad Nacional de Colombia with participation of Universidad Nacional de San Juan (Argentina). No registered trademarks. Assets would move to LF Projects LLC / Linux Foundation Europe per the LF Energy technical charter.
Has this project been announced or promoted in any press?
No formal press yet. The tool is being presented within the Community Energy Grand Challenge 2026 (ComErgy) international coopetition and to the RIPCEL/CYTED network (16 countries); university and network communications are planned. We would welcome an LF Energy blog post at acceptance.
Does this project compete with other open source projects or commercial products?
It is complementary rather than competing:
vs. FlexMeasures / OpenSTEF (forecasting & scheduling): LayerATDT focuses on the downstream question of value allocation, not prediction/control — integration is more natural than competition.
vs. CityLearn / Grid2Op (benchmarks/RL environments): LayerATDT is a design/decision tool, not a control benchmark; it can consume such environments.
vs. commercial VPP/EMS platforms and energy-community consultancies (mostly proprietary, Europe/Australia-centred): LayerATDT is the open, code-auditable alternative focused on fairness and explainability, and uniquely attentive to Global South / energy-poverty contexts. Where commercial players exist, an open reference implementation expands the market by enabling standard, transparent evaluation — consistent with LF Energy's role.