Abstract
The growth of renewable energy sources usage at the local level contributes to decentralizing the power and energy systems. Nowadays, there is an increment of residential consumers becoming prosumers able to consume their generation or sell it to the public grid to reduce the electricity bill. This great penetration of electricity compromises the proper functioning of the system. Local electricity markets (LEM) are market platforms aimed at electricity end-users to be able to negotiate and transact it between them, thus becoming active players in the system, being a possible solution to balance local systems. Different approaches for LEM design and implementation are proposed in the literature, usually based on community markets and peer-to-peer. Despite their value, these solutions' scalability is compromised as these are centralized solutions, and processing can become very heavy. In this sense, this work proposes a blockchain-based distributed and decentralized optimal solution for implementing LEM. © 2022 IEEE.

Abstract
The integration of distributed energy resources contributes to accomplishing a balance between the supply and demand inside a local market. The operation of these markets is based on the peer-to-peer negotiations between users, whose cooperation leads to an increase in the social welfare of the community, thus creating a more user-centric market. This work fits in the context of the energy community, where members of a community can exchange energy in peer-to-peer transactions and use the public electricity grid as a backup. The market aims at maximizing the social welfare of the community considering the operational costs of all community members. A particle swarm optimization algorithm implemented in Python is used to solve the problem. © 2022 IEEE.

Abstract
Recent commitments and consequent advances towards an effective energy transition are resulting in promising solutions but also bringing out significant new challenges. Models for energy management at the building and microgrid level are benefiting from new findings in distinct areas such as the internet of things or machine learning. However, the interaction and complementarity between such physical and virtual environments need to be validated and enhanced through dedicated platforms. This chapter presents the Multi-Agent based Real-Time Infrastructure for Energy (MARTINE), which provides a platform that enables a combined assessment of multiple components, including physical components of buildings and microgrids, emulation capabilities, multi-agent and real-time simulation, and intelligent decision support models and services based on machine learning approaches. Besides enabling the study and management of energy resources considering both the physical and virtual layers, MARTINE also provides the means for a continuous improvement of the synergies between the Internet of Things and machine learning solutions.

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Abstract
Metaheuristic optimization algorithms are increasingly used to reach near-optimal solutions for complex and large-scale problems that cannot be solved in due time by exact methods. Metaheuristics’ performance is, however, deeply dependent on their effective configuration and fine-tuning to align the algorithm’s search process with the specific characteristics of the problem that is being solved. Although the literature already offers some solutions for automatic algorithm configuration, these are usually either algorithm-specific or problem-specific, thus lacking the capability of being used for diverse metaheuristic models or diverse optimization problems. This work proposes a new approach for the automatic optimization of metaheuristic algorithms’ parameters based on a multi-agent system approach. The proposed model includes an automated fine-tuning process, which is used to optimize a given function in an algorithm- and problem-agnostic manner. Results show that the proposed model is able to achieve better optimization results than standard metaheuristic algorithms, with a negligible increase in the required execution time. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.